


Girls Just Wanna Play Volleyball

by nikomiel



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bullying/Harrassment, Genderbending, KageHina - Freeform, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 39,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikomiel/pseuds/nikomiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata Shouyou lives, dreams, and breathes volleyball. She may be female, but she can play.</p><p>The only problem is convincing everyone else of that. </p><p> </p><p>In which Hinata is disadvantaged not only by height but also by gender, and overcomes both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Little Upset

“I want to join the volleyball club.”

Daichi turned around, confused. The corridor was flooded with Karasuno students, all yelling to one another and obnoxiously slurping on juice boxes, so it took a long time for him to find the source of the chirpy voice.  
Eventually, he looked down. A pair of large brown eyes, slightly wide set and tip tilted, stared back at him through a few stray ginger curls.  
The small girl was wearing a fierce expression of determination, thin mouth drawn wide in stubbornness. He sighed.  
“Sorry, the girl’s club isn’t running this year, but if you ask Michimiya Yui I’m sure she will-“  
“I know. I want to join the boy’s club.”  
Daichi choked on his own spit, completely taken aback. Coughing, he attempted to compose himself, even as the girl raised one eyebrow questioningly.  
“There is a boy’s club, right?”  
“Yes…”  
“And it’s looking for members?”  
“ _Male_ members,” Daichi said, trying not to sound like an asshole (but really, what a stupid question).  
The girl folded her arms like a kid. “Well that’s not fair. If I can’t train with the girls, why won’t you let me train with the boys?”  
It was a good question, and Daichi wasn’t exactly sure how to answer her. Struggling, he eventually managed to stutter out something of an answer.  
“You could get hurt,” he said. “Boy’s volleyball is more intense than girl’s volleyball. You won’t keep up.”  
The girl looked incredibly insulted. “I get hurt all the time in girl’s volleyball! I usually just don’t move out of the way in time, and that’s not because I’m a girl, it’s because I don’t concentrate sometimes. I’m sure I would get hit in the face all the time if I were a boy.”  
“Look, kid-“  
“ _Hinata_.”  
“Hinata,” he said, sighing again. “It’s too much of a liability.”  
The girl actually stomped her foot. “So you won’t even let me try? Not even one practice? How am I supposed to become the new little giant if I can’t even practice?”  
“Little giant?” Daichi replied, now completely lost.  
“Yeah! He’s my hero. He was short and he made it. I’m a girl and I’m going to make it.”  
She clenched her fist, eyes blazing in determination. The air around her seemed to fizzle with intensity as she spoke.  
“I’m going to show everyone that I can play just as well as the boys. But how am I supposed to do that if you jerks won’t let me play?!”

He stared around, feeling incredibly mean and hating it. She was now gazing up at him, and her eyes seemed to triple in size, little pointed face almost hidden by wild orange cowlicks.

Kicking himself, he closed his eyes.

“ _Fine_. One practice. And if someone breaks your nose, it’ll be your own fault.”

x

 

“…and I swear to god, Koushi, she actually _skipped_ away,” Daichi was sighing as he relayed that morning’s events to his silver-haired teammate, whose face was a mixture of sympathy and amusement (the pig). They were strolling along to practice, and the captain was dreading it for the first time ever. Mostly because, for the first time ever, he had no idea what to expect.  
“Anyway, now I don’t know what to do, because letting her train with us will completely upset the team dynamic-“  
Suga spluttered a little at this, but let it slide.  
“- but it’s not like I can let her _play matches_ with us!” Daichi finished, throwing his hands up in the air at the very thought.  
“Why not?”  
“What?”  
“Why can’t she play?” Suga asked, bluntly. Daichi’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish several times.  
“B-because!”  
“Are you afraid she won’t be good enough?” Suga continued, casually waving off Daichi’s feeble attempt at a response and steering them towards the Karasuno gym. “Because if that’s the case, she just won’t be a starting member.”  
“Suga, will you stop being so rational about this?!” Daichi said, half-seriously, and his teammate laughed. “The logistics aren’t the point. The point is that it’s a men’s team, we play in a men’s league, and throwing a girl in would just upset everything.”

  
Suga stopped them just before the doors, placing one hand on either of the captain’s shoulders, and gazing at him with sincere hazel eyes.  
“Daichi, Karasuno lost their winning streak a long time ago. We haven’t been champions for years.”

He paused, looking towards the open doors, where a tiny ginger figure was just visible inside.  
”Maybe a little upset is just what we need.”


	2. The Reception

“Are you from the cheerleading team?”

Hinata swung around. There was no way that such a stupid question was directed at _her_.  
Except, apparently it was, because the bald guy staring at her curiously from by the volleyball net was most definitely waiting for her to reply.  
She was so startled by the stupidity of anyone picturing her with a skirt and pom-poms that she actually barked out a laugh.  
“Uhm… nope?”  
The guy waited a bit longer, and she finally recognised her cue to introduce herself.  
“Oh! Sorry. My name’s Hinata Shouyou, and-“  
“Your name’s _what_?!”  
She broke off at the arrival of a new voice, much deeper and tinged with an air of, well, jerkassery.  
Spinning around again, she hunted around the gym for the source. She didn’t have to look far.

Everything about the guy in front of her oozed “superiority”.

His flat black hair, cut in a jagged fringe over narrow blue eyes, which were glaring at her in an expression of disbelief. His lanky build, every muscle extended as he drew himself up to full height.  
The ball tucked possessively under one arm.

She felt her hackles rise instantly at the implication behind the question, and scowled back at the guy, folding her arms.  
“I said, Hinata Shouyou.”  
He scoffed, actually _scoffed_ , and she felt herself flush with anger.  
“That’s a boy’s name.”  
“Well clearly it’s not,” she snapped, fingers digging into her arms with her fury, “because it’s my name and I’m not a boy.”  
In the pause that followed, the jerky guy made a _tchhh_ sound, obviously unsatisfied with her logic but unable to think of a response to it.  
 _Hah._

Pleased with herself, she unfolded her arms, rubbing the bits where her nails had dug in.  
The bald guy was still staring at her, more curiously now, and she could almost see the thought bubble above his head. _Maybe she’s our manager? or our watergirl?_

She scowled at the thought, and was about to head off the impending question when a pair of syncopated footsteps tapped into the gym.

Baldy and Jerkface immediately turned to the door with expectant looks, and they were joined by a tall blonde and his freckly sidekick.

_These must be the other newbies._

She looked around, analysing them curiously. Who was a spiker, who was a setter, middle blocker, ace player?

The tall blonde guy definitely screamed blocker. The rowdy baldy guy was flashy enough to be an ace spiker – he was energetic in a heavy, muscular sort of way, not light enough to be a libero. The freckly guy was a mystery.

And the only thing she knew about the jerky guy was that she didn’t like him.

As they stood there, facing the seniors, she cracked a secret grin in excitement for what was to come.  
The team was assembling. They just didn’t know it included _her_.

Daichi remedied that in his first sentence.

“Ah, you must be the new hopefuls. Tsukishima Kei…”  
The blonde nodded almost imperceptibly, expression unchanged.  
“Yamaguchi Tadashi…”  
Freckles smiled nervously.  
“Kageyama Tobio…”  
Jerkface stepped forward and nodded seriously, as if he were being sworn in to the police or something. What a dick.  
“...and, ahem, Hinata Shouyou.”

There was a massive pause.

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were looking around bemusedly for this Hinata kid (well, Yamaguchi was; the blonde looked at his shoes, not even feigning interest), but Baldy and Kageyama Jerkface were staring at her with looks of utter surprise (Baldy) and horror (Kageyama).

“Hi,” she squeaked eventually to the six curious faces opposite her. “It’s nice to me-“

“You’re letting her do _what_?!” Kageyama was striding forward, looking respectfully pissed off (if there was such an expression), and standing in front of the seniors with his fists clenched to his sides.  
“No offence, Daichi-san, but is this some kind of joke?!”

“ _HEY_!” she snapped, stomping forward to join him and feeling her face flame up in anger (damn her pale skin). “You think I can’t be in the team, just cause I’m a girl?!”

Kageyama didn’t even bother to turn around. “Yes, that’s _exactly_ what I think.”

Her face was now almost as red as her hair. She wanted to hit him, more than she’d ever wanted to hit anyone else.  
“Why you-“

“Kageyama,” the silver-haired guy next to the captain said, smiling placidly. He had a gentle face, sweetly pointed with the lightest birth mark under one hazel eye. She liked him.  
“Don’t you think you should give her a chance?”  
She liked him more now.

Kageyama, however, looked like he had swallowed something extremely foul. “The _team_ won’t have a chance if we put her in it,” he muttered, and that was it.

Before she knew it she was leaping in front of him, sticking one finger into his chest, and yelling up into his stupid face.  
“Try me, then! I’ll receive all your serves!”

He looked extremely taken aback, and she could hear Daichi attempting to placate them in the background, but then his eyes narrowed and he spat out a single word.

“Fine.”

Still carrying the volleyball, he strode over to the other side of the net, and she darted off to her side, both completely ignoring Daichi’s pleas to calm down and talk it through.

Baldy was cheering something, and silver-hair started yelling _don’t encourage them, Tanaka!_ , but she was trying to block everything out and focus, focus on the net and the ball and the jerkface holding it like it was an egg he wanted to crack.  
She’d always had trouble doing that. Her thoughts danced and chirped in her head like crickets, and blocking them out was impossible, but she took a breath and tried.

_Just relax, Shouyou. It’s just like your junior high team. Just like Miki’s serves… they were always difficult, weren’t they? I bet he can’t serve as well as-_

The guy suddenly tossed the ball up into the air, took a running leap for it, and she just had time to squeak an ‘oh, crap’ before the ball rocketed into her vision and she instinctively leapt to one side.

It thundered against the wall, coming to rest centimetres away from her crouching body. She gazed at it, brown eyes widening in disbelief at the speed and power with which it had been sent flying at her nose.

_Holy shit._  
 _How the_ hell _am I supposed to receive_ that _?!_

On the other side of the net, Kageyama made a _pfft_ noise and turned away.

“Of course you ducked. I was stupid to think you’d do anything else,” he snorted, and she kicked the ball back at him with unnecessary force.

  
“ _ONE MORE_!” she shouted, fury now overriding her fear, and he looked startled again. “I wasn’t ready, I’d never seen a jump serve before!”  
Rising to her feet, she adopted the receiving stance, and glared at him. He stared back, waiting.  
“But I have now! Let’s go!”

His mouth tightened into a thin line, he barely nodded, tossed it casually into the air and jumped forward, high and curving like a throwing knife-  
A smack as his palm hit the ball and sent it speeding over the net-  
It was spinning towards her, impossibly fast, but she wasn’t going to duck this time-

_WHAM._

The sound echoed around the gym as the ball smacked against her forehead.

The force knocked her back, head smashing into the ground and sliding a metre or so before she came to an inglorious halt at the end of the court.

The others made various sounds of sympathy and shock, sprinting towards her with expressions of horror (except the blonde, who looked like he wanted to laugh). Gasps and clattering footsteps bounced around the gym walls as the team dropped in a circle around her, with Daichi hollering for a medikit.

Even Kageyama Jerkface had ducked under the net and was striding towards her, face twisted into a mixture of satisfaction, regret, and, most strangely, disappointment.

 

Not that she knew about it though.  
She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

 

x

Coming to was not the most pleasant experience of her life, lying there with a dim pain throbbing in the centre of her forehead and the sickroom lights blaring into her vision.  
The dim pain intensified as she tried to sit up, moaning, and it swept her back into the pillow.

There was a startled noise next to her and she tried to move her head without it hurting.

 

“How are you feeling, Hinata?”

The silver-haired senior was standing next to her bed, eyes crinkling in worry, and she tried to smile.

“Like I just got served.”

He laughed, and the sound drilled into her head a little, but she didn’t mind. At least this guy wasn’t going to judge her for completely screwing up her grand entry into the Karasuno volleyball team.

Her grin faded.

“Guess I’m not as tough as I think I am, huh?” she muttered, feeling tears well up in her eyes that had nothing to do with the pain.

It was over.

  
Her trial for the team had been a one-hit KO. There was no coming back from that- they wouldn’t even trust her to practice with them now.  
She had been waiting for this all summer, watching old Little Giant videos, stalking Daichi in the hallways until clubs started up again, spiking again and again into the brick wall at her house until her hand smarted and her mother actually confiscated the ball…  
All that effort, all that talk, all that dreaming, for nothing.

Her lip trembled.

 

“I wouldn’t say that,” Hazel-eyes replied out of the blue, sitting gingerly on the edge of her bed. She looked at him, surprised, and he cracked an impish grin. “You saw how fast Kageyama could serve, and you demanded another one anyway. You didn’t even flinch.” He laughed again, light but genuine. “Tanaka was saying how he would’ve run a mile from a serve like that, and even Daichi wouldn’t be able to stop it in a game. And Kageyama… well, he was pretty frantic. I think he thought he’d managed to kill you. He said he didn’t actually think you were brave enough to try and take him on,” he finished, neglecting to mention that the word Kageyama had really used was “stupid”.

“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling slightly better but still like crap by anyone’s standards (and why she gave a damn what Jerkface thought, she didn’t know).  
She wormed her fingers into the thin sheet, clenching it in her fist. “I just wanted to prove-“

“-that you could stand on the court, with everyone else.” He finished, standing up as a woman’s voice could be heard speaking frantically outside. “I know.”  
Turning towards the door, he shot her a sympathetic look. “I think Mrs Hinata is here to pick you up. The school let her know you’d been injured playing sport, and she sounded pretty worried…”

She blanched.  
“You called my _mother_?!”


	3. The Partnership Begins

As soon as the ball left Kageyama’s hand, he knew what was going to happen.

He’d been _seething_ , furious at this girl and her audacity in coming in here and announcing that she was going to play on the team, like it was no big deal. Like she could play just as well as Kageyama, despite being a foot shorter and roughly half his body mass. Like split-gender clubs didn’t exist for a _reason_.

Well, he supposed he’d made that reason perfectly clear in knocking her out.

The first serve, he’d been a little relieved that she’d ducked away. Yet inexplicably angry too, that she’d been all talk and no receive, until she’d stood up and demanded another.

Oh, and then he’d _really_ let it go, let all his annoyance feed into one burning serve, and he’d wanted to snatch it back as soon as he’d hit it, but it was too late and he could see the ball reflected in her eyes-

Then the second years and Suga were carting her off to the nurse, and he was left standing there, feeling like the biggest asshole in history.

 _Fuck_ , he thought, eloquently.

 

Tsukishima and his friend were quietly packing up their things, as Kageyama knocking someone unconscious had dampened the volleyball mood somewhat, but the captain was standing opposite him with his arms folded, unmoving.

 

“I’m so-“ he began, but the captain interrupted him swiftly.  
“Don’t apologise to me. Apologise to the girl you sent to the nurse’s office on her first day. Jesus, Kageyama, was that really necessary?!”  
Kageyama bit his lip, trying not to feel terrible and failing. “It wasn’t on purp-“  
“Bull _SHIT_ it wasn’t on purpose!” Daichi roared, out of the blue, and Kageyama actually jumped. Tsukishima was snickering in the background, the asshole, but his friend was staring over with an expression of sympathy.  
“You were trying to scare her off, weren’t you?” the captain demanded, and Kageyama felt a rush of guilt as he realised it was the truth. “You wouldn’t have served that hard to a guy on his first day, but instead of going easy on her you thought you’d show her how boys' volleyball can _really_ be!”  
“She wanted me to!” Kageyama blurted, unsure where the words were coming from but knowing it was the truth. “If I’d gone easy on her she would have been insulted-“  
“Better than _unconscious_!”

There was a pause, and the other first-years snuck silently out of the gym. Daichi dug Kageyama’s membership form out of his bag, thrusting it back at him.

“You treated her like she was an idiot for trying. I have no place for people like _that_ in my club.”

 

Kageyama felt his mouth fall open, and it was like the world all around him was rushing to a dreadful halt, zooming in on the piece of paper being handed back to him.  
His volleyball future, rejected because some idiot couldn’t accept her gender boundaries.  
It was over before it had even begun.

“Isn’t there some way I can make it up to her?” he asked, desperately. “Can’t I just apologise, or…something...“he finished lamely, the paper shaking in his hand.

Daichi paused, and Kageyama felt a warm flurry of hope-

“You can teach her to receive.”

The hope died a fiery death in his chest.

He could almost see his volleyball career swirling down the drain in front of him, because there was no way he could teach that dumbass _anything_.  
Boy or girl, anyone who managed to get knocked out on their first try was a lost cause.

However, he knew saying this to Daichi would possibly get him banned from the club forever, so he held his tongue.

“Teach her to receive, and play a game against us with her and Tanaka. If you win, you’re both in. But if you lose…” He looked Kageyama dead in the eye, who felt horror crawling up his spine at the idea of working with Hinata Shouyou, “…you’re out of the club.”

x

He recognised her almost instantly, a tiny figure bouncing out of the school gates with her backpack hanging off one shoulder and singular ponytail sticking up like a spiky ginger shrub. She waved to a group of girls, grinning like an idiot, and he allowed himself a spot of disbelief that Hinata had _friends_ , before she made her way over to the bike shed and he darted over to follow.

Reaching out, he grabbed her shoulder to spin her around.  
“Oi, Hinata-“

She turned around, and he felt a spike of horror at the cloudy, confused look in her large brown eyes.

“I’m sorry? Who’s Hinata?”

Hot panic lanced through him, and his mind went blank at the realisation that she’d forgotten her own name, he had given this girl _amnesia_ , and oh my god he was going to get kicked out of school, possibly out of the country, and made to live in Iceland or somewhere because he’d managed to hit her so hard she’d lost her memory-

Then all the panicking screeched to a halt as her lips twitched and she suddenly doubled over, howling with laughter.

Kageyama realised he’d been well and truly screwed with.

“Tanaka-senpai…was right… that was fun..” she wheezed in between waves of uncontrollable laughter, and a large part of him itched to reached out and grab that fluffy head of hers, but he knew that was a surefire way to get suspended.

He settled for glaring at her with the burning fury of the fires of Hell.

Eventually, the gales subsided, and, wiping her eyes, she straightened up. Not that it made much height difference.

“Sorry, but since you knocked me out I think I’m entitled to play a joke on you,” she said, lips twitching into a cat smile. “Your face was hilarious, by the way.” She did a terrible (he hoped) impression of a slack jawed Kageyama, and he scowled even harder.

“Whatever,” he snapped, trying to pretend he hadn’t fallen for it and completely failing. “I came here to offer to teach you, but maybe you’re too much of a brat.”

The smile slid off her face and she looked a little scared. “What? _You_ want to teach _me_?”

He nodded, unwillingly.

”Why?” she said suspiciously, and he sighed.

“Do you want to join the club or not?” he snapped, fiddling with the strap of his bag. She slung hers up higher, thinking.

“Daichi’s making you do this, isn’t he?” she said, shrewdly, and he blanched, but she didn’t look too mad. “Well, fine. You teach me how to receive, and-“

“-and we play a game against them, and win, and we both make it into the club,” he rushed out. “Yeah.”

Unlocking her bike, she stood up and looked him full in the face. The bruise on her forehead was an angry greenish-purple, and looking at it made him feel awful all over again, so he dropped his gaze to meet her eyes. She had a surprisingly earnest gaze, all big eyes and pouty mouth, and for some reason it made him want to look away even more than the bruise did, but he stared right back at her.  
Then her eyes narrowed in determination, and the change in expression was shocking.

“Let’s do this.”


	4. Assemble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to piss every single one of you off by completely abandoning the original chronology of the original series  
> why?  
> because it's my story damnit and i don't want it to just be exactly the same as the original, except shittier and a little more feminist.

_“ONE MORE!”_

_Smack!_

_“ONE MORE!”_

_Smack!_

_“ONE MORE!”_

 

“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!” Kageyama roared, smacking the ball at Hinata with more force than was really necessary, and for a second he thought she was going to receive it with her face again, but then her body moved seemingly of her own accord and the ball bounced off her forearms in a perfect arc.

They stared at each other there in the park, both surprised, before Hinata cracked a huge grin and started jumping up and down like a little kid.

“Uwaaaaa! That was _awesome_ , cause you were like BAM and I was like AHHH but then my reflexes were like FWOOM-“

“Yes, it was about time those kicked in,” he said, meanly, but Hinata didn’t seem to hear him, leaping up and down and still making those stupid noises.

“I’m so happy!” She was grinning broadly, eyes shining, and he looked away, feeling uncomfortable (again) but not knowing why. She was just so _sincere_ , all the time, and it was putting him off, the lack of dissonance between her brain and her mouth. 

“Hey, Kageyama, do you think we’re ready now? To beat those seniors tomorrow?”

There was a pause.

“No, we’re still screwed.”

She slumped over melodramatically onto the grass, hair falling out of its ribbon and obscuring her face.  
“But whyyyyyyy?” she moaned, and he would have laughed if he weren't so irritated by everything about her.

“Because you have no skills. The only thing you can do is receive, and even that’s a gamble,” he said, rather bluntly, and stepped back a bit as she jumped to her feet.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that! You haven’t seen me jump yet! You haven’t seen my amazing spike!”

“If it’s anything like your _amazing receive_ , I don’t want to,” he said.

“Hey! My receive is my weakest skill!”

“…thank God.”

x

 

He woke up the next day feeling sick to his stomach.

D-Day had arrived, the time of judgement was upon them, and he knew without question that they were going to fall at the first hurdle.  
There was no way they could win this today. They were fools for trying.  
It was all so unfair that it made him physically nauseated, such that he couldn’t even slurp down his milk box on the way to school and had to chuck a good third of it away. What a waste.

Coming in through the wrought iron gates, he could see a tiny redheaded figure, clutching a volleyball and chatting nineteen to the dozen with an elementary kid.  
At least, he thought it was an elementary kid, before the guy turned and Kageyama saw he was wearing a Karasuno uniform.  
They were both gesturing wildly, speech peppered with sound effects that he could hear even from his position several metres away, and bouncing on their toes whenever the conversation got too exciting.

_Oh good Lord, they’re multiplying._

Sighing, he attempted to mosey past Hinata and the other midget, when they both caught sight of him and pounced.

“Oi, Kageyama!” Hinata was waving at him with amazing vigour, like he was at the top of a steep hill looking down on her and not just standing a metre away.  
He attempted to ignore her, but all of a sudden her friend was looking up at him with narrow golden-brown eyes that matched his brown (natural) and gold (dyed) hair.  
“You’re Kageyama? The setter that knocked out Shouyou?”  
“…yes,” said Kageyama, reluctantly, wondering if this was how he would be introducing himself for the rest of his time at Karasuno. Hinata was suddenly gazing up at him too, and he felt his customary scowl work over his face.  
“I’m Nishinoya,” the short guy said, playing with his dyed fringe. “Hinata’s new volleyball tutor.”  
“Nishinoya- _senpai_ , to us,” Hinata put in, and the guy looked like she’d shot him with one of Cupid’s arrows. “He’s a second-year libero, and he saw me carrying a volleyball on the way to practice for today’s game, I’m so nervous by the way, and then he asked if I play, and I said yes, and he said oh cool me too, and he’s a libero, I think I said that already though, and anyway he’s gonna teach me how to receive!”  
“Good for you,” Kageyama said mechanically, torn between disbelief that this guy was a second-year and a little annoyance that Hinata was moving tutors already (although he should feel relieved, really, shouldn’t he?).  
“Nishinoya…senpai… are you playing in the game today?” he asked, cautiously, and the senior’s face hardened.

“I’m not playing if Asahi’s not playing,” he snapped, looking mightily pissed off suddenly, and turned to Hinata. “See you around, Shouyou. I might come and watch.”

With that, he abruptly zoomed off to his next class, leaving Hinata looking a little sad and Kageyama feeling like he’d crossed some invisible boundary.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded, and the redhead chewed one thin lip.  
“Asahi-san is… was… Karasuno’s ace,” she explained, walking along to class alongside Kageyama, who was now wishing he hadn’t invited her to do so by asking a question. “He quit after a tough match, when he got blocked every time, and Noya-senpai never forgave him for that. So they both stopped, and now Noya-senpai is only willing to help me out, not play. It’s a shame, because Suga-san said that he was Karasuno’s guardian deity, and he won an award for being a libero and stuff…”

In a flash, Kageyama remembered something.

“Wait, Nishinoya Yuu? The guy that was named Libero of the Year, and got his own cover in-“  
“Volleyzette?” they said, simultaneously, and he blinked.  
“Wait, you read that?”  
“ _Only every single week!_ ” Hinata said, ridiculously excited at the mention of her favourite online magazine. “I refresh the page every twenty seconds on Sundays waiting for the next issue to update!”  
Kageyama snorted, neglecting to mention that he did the exact same thing and feeling unnerved that they had something in common.  
“Well, I guess neither of them deserve their titles if they’re willing to ditch the team like that.”

Hinata was suddenly frowning at him, a look of almost contempt in her wide-set eyes. “That’s not fair. It’s hard to move on from a game like that, especially if you feel totally responsible.”  
He looked at her, frowning back. “A team is made up of individuals, but individuals don’t make the team. If a team loses, everyone loses. You shouldn’t quit just because you made a mistake, because there were five other people on that team who made mistakes too.”  
They paused outside his classroom, where a gaggle of students were already hanging around in the corridor and blocking the path of everyone else, as per high school routine.  
Hinata was looking surprised, but eventually she smiled up at him, a closed-mouth grin of approval.  
“Oh, you seem to have changed your attitude since Junior High, Mr. King-of-the-Court.”

_King?_

It felt like the world was suddenly falling around him, the sky turning black and every muscle in his body set to high alert at the name. There was a roaring in his ears, and Hinata’s face seemed to blur before him.

“What did you just call me?” he asked, dangerously.  
She looked stunned at the force of his reaction. “I-I’m sorry, I heard that it was your nickname, that you used to be kind of a one-man team because you were so good-“  
“ _That’s not why_ ,” he spat. “Don’t you DARE call me king. Ever. Again.”  
With that, he spun around and went into his classroom, leaving her open-mouthed in the corridor.

 

 

He fumed the whole way through the school day, and it was almost a blessing to have his mind taken off the impending challenge. But then, the bell rang, and reality sunk in. The annoyance at Hinata was diluting, being replaced by an almost crippling nervousness that he didn’t want to address. Being reminded of his old habits only exacerbated his fears for today’s game – that he was going to screw it all up, that Tanaka and Hinata wouldn’t be able to hit his spikes, which they could barely get already.

Walking into the gym, he winced as the others turned to greet him.

The practice sessions that they’d had were mediocre at best. Tanaka had been an excellent spiker, but it seemed that neither of them trusted Hinata at the front line (Tanaka was worried that she would break her ‘cute little face’), so she’d been stuck at the back, on reception duty. A dead weight.

There was no way that they were ready. Not with two capable players and a Hinata.

There was little point even trying.

 

x

At the beginning, his fears were confirmed again and again. Daichi and his first-years scored the first five successive points almost effortlessly.

It was a glum opening, with Noya’s cheers on the sidelines quietening more and more until he simply muttered “Unlucky, Shouyou” whenever the pint-sized player missed a receive. Which was fairly often.

Eventually, at 12-4, Tanaka called for a rather unorthodox time-out.

“This isn’t working,” he said, stating the obvious, and the first-years glared at each other. “Kageyama, you gotta slow down your tosses. They’re getting too quick for me as you panic.”  
“Well if Hinata tried a little harder to actually recieve –I mean, look, she’s not even out of breath!” Kageyama snapped, feeling a dim pang of horror that his fears were being realised.  
The girl shot him a crackling look of fury.  
“Well, if you’d let me actually _play_ , maybe I would be!” she almost shouted, pink spots appearing on her cheeks. “Kageyama, we’re either on the team together or off it together. At some point you’re gonna have to let me play for real, not jump in front of me every time the ball appears!”  
To his dismay, Tanaka was nodding along.  
“Okay, Hinata-chan, let’s see what you got. Do-or-die.”  
She clenched her fist, looking fired up for the first time all match, and Kageyama groaned.

From the other side of the court, he could see Tsukishima looking at them curiously. His blocks had been steadily aggravating Kageyama all match, along with Daichi’s solid receives and Yamaguchi’s quiet competence.

This was impossible, but he supposed the good thing about such impossibility was that they could try anything. Even letting Hinata play, although it went against every fibre of his being.

 _Do or die_ , he sighed in his head,

  
and got ready to die.

 

Daichi served, powerful and steady, to continue the match, and Kageyama’s stomach was a ball of nerves. Tanaka received it smoothly, thank god, but it was a fast ball and Kageyama had to rush to get into tossing position.

_Gotta get rid of it fast, gotta pass it on before they prepare themselves for the spike, go go go-_

His palms flicked the ball, spinning it towards the right hand side of the net, but too late he realised-  
He’d done it again. There was no way Tanaka would get there, and Hinata was still on his left-  
It was going too fast, it was going too fast and there was nobody there-  
He felt like he was back in Kitagawa Daiichi, tossing the ball to an empty court, the king deserted by his subjects-  
This couldn’t be happening, he _promised_ himself it would change-

 

An orange blur seemed to rip through the air and suddenly, Hinata was hanging there, arm winding back and ripping forward.

 

Her hair was blazing around her head, a halo of orange light, and everything was very, very still.  
He realised her eyes were squeezed shut.

Then, time sped back up and she smacked the ball down to the other end of the court, where it bounced past a still unmoving Tsukishima and whizzed off to the corner of the gym.  
Hinata landed, shoes squeaking a little, and tipped sideways from the force of her landing.

There was a silence.

 

Still turned away from her, Kageyama was staring over his shoulder, feeling like _he’d_ been hit in the head this time, because he could swear that there was nobody there and then she _flew_ , up and forward to meet the toss to no-one.  
He was still staring, and she was gazing at her scarlet palm, mouth working into a little ‘o’ of surprise, and the gym was completely devoid of noise-

Then a cheer ripped into the silence, and Tanaka slapped her on the back, as Noya ran over to jump on his shoulders and rub Hinata’s hair, and Sugawara was clapping on the sidelines.  
The other team were stunned.  
Kageyama was also stunned.

She looked over at him, face split wide in ecstasy, and he was whispering “how did you do that?”, and she was shrugging her shoulders, and he couldn’t believe it.  
He couldn’t believe she could jump like that.

“I told you!” she was suddenly saying, bouncing up and down. “I told you I could jump!”

He supposed now he had to believe her.

 

x

They won 25-21.

At the end of the match, Tanaka was throwing Hinata bodily up and down in the air, yelling _HINATA-CHAN, HINATA-CHAN!_ with every toss, and Noya was gazing at her like she was the answer to the universe itself, and Hinata was grinning so hard Daichi thought her face might melt from sustaining it, and Suga was still clapping daintily on the sidelines.  
It was chaos in the Karasuno gym, and the captain realised that this was what Suga had been aiming at.  
An upset.  
Something to turn the tides, shake up the team, like the freaky-quick strike of the grouchy setter-to-be and the hyperactive sole female member.

The other first years had accepted their loss graciously (or in Tsukishima’s case, without giving a single shit), and Daichi walked over to congratulate his newest members, when he caught sight of Noya’s face.

The pint-sized libero had moved on from goggling at Hinata and was now looking at the court like it was Leonardo DiCaprio and he was Kate Winslet in Titanic.

(Not that Daichi had watched that movie. Six times.)

It was the helplessly stubborn look of someone who was missing something desperately but couldn’t bring themselves to try and get it back.  
It was ridiculous, because they needed a libero, and here was a libero, desperate to play but too haughty for their own good.

Here was a libero who was... laughing with Shouyou? Teasing the crap out of Kageyama?

Looking at his first years, gushing over the game with Noya, the captain knew what to do.

_A different approach._

Beckoning Hinata and Kageyama, he bent low (for Hinata’s sake) and whispered to them, as quietly as possible, while looking at Noya.

“I’ve got a job for you guys.”


	5. Afraid

The ace of Karasuno High dully chewed his pencil and fixed his blurry gaze on the needlessly complicated formulae etched on the whiteboard opposite him.

He was going to fail this class, it was obvious.

He was going to fail calculus, and all of the universities he was frantically Googling after school were going to reject him, and he was going to become a bum living on the street and playing ukulele for cash, which would be difficult because he had neither owned nor played a ukulele ever in his life, and he was going to be known as Crazy Uncle Asahi, family embarrassment and outcast, all because he couldn’t remember that the differentiation of sin _x_ was cos _x_.

The thought made him chew so furiously on his pencil that the eraser on the tip came off in his mouth. He spat it out into his bento.

It was so unfair, that everyone else was lazily eating lunch and chatting about random crap, yet no amount of studying during break hours was apparently going to get Asahi to pass.

“This sucks,” he muttered, and was about to get a new pencil when someone yelled his name from across the class, and he jumped in his seat.

“Hey, Azumane! Some girl’s here to see you!”

His face turned a fiery red, and he stuttered out a phrase that might once have been “What?”

“Yeah, some little redhead girl!”  
“Is that your little sister?”  
“Nah, she’s too tiny to be related to _him_!”  
“Were we right, is he a pimp after all?”

Asahi’s face was now purple, and he leapt off his chair, staggering to the door.

”For the last time, I’m not a pimp!” he managed to yell, opening it, and was met with the extremely confused faces of Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio.

“Er… hi.”

x

“Hi!” Hinata squeaked back, taking a small step back. Kageyama didn’t blame her; this guy was _massive_. He could probably bench-press two of her without breaking a sweat.  
He stepped in, sighing. “We’re from the volleyball club. My name’s Kageyama Tobio, and this is –“  
“Hinata Shouyou!” she finished, apparently overcoming her temporary paralysis and pumping the ace’s hand up and down. “We’re here to bring you back.”  
Kageyama wanted to slap himself in the face. “Idiot, don’t start so bluntly!” he hissed at her, but Asahi didn’t look cross.  
Just saddened.  
“That’s sweet of you guys,” he said, sounding genuine, “but I don’t play anymore. If you knew what happened, you’d-“

  
“I roo!” Hinata jumped in, tripping over her words in her haste. “I deally deally roo! Um, I mean I _really really do_! Noya-senpai told us, and he said that you won’t play anymore, and then he won’t play anymore, which I think is silly because you are both so amazing and we really really need you and tell him, Kageyama, tell him what you told me! Something team individual losing something!”  
Asahi was looking at her, amusement on his face, and Kageyama could only marvel that he wasn’t pissed off by this tiny ginger girl rattling off fifty- word sentences at breakneck speed. In fact, Asahi was visibly softening.  
Kageyama wondered why she had that effect on everyone but him.

He also wondered why the hell Daichi had dragged _him_ into this. Hinata was the obvious choice; little and fluffy and the opposite gender, which was a failsafe combination to get anyone to do anything.   
Meanwhile he, Kageyama, was the same gender, tall for his age, and about as fluffy as a cactus.  
Daichi was an idiot.

“Well,” the setter managed eventually, “losing doesn’t mean you suck. I mean, sometimes it does, but mostly it just means that, for whatever reason, that other team had something you didn’t. Teamwork, better skills, or maybe just luck. There’s no reason to quit over it.” He paused, trying to remember exactly what he had said to Hinata that made her smile.

Not that he was trying to again. It was all for Asahi.

  
“And anyway, a team wins and loses as a team. Just because you’re an ace doesn’t mean you’re responsible for everything.”  
There was a silence. Asahi was fiddling with his beard, absent-mindedly, as Kageyama finished. He opened his mouth to speak, when Hinata jumped forward again, and Kageyama was about to hit her to shut her up when he realised what she was saying.

  
“It’s okay to be scared!” She blurted. “I’m scared, too. We’re all a little bit scared, because we want to do our best. Kageyama is scared because he’s the setter and he can’t screw up tosses. You’re scared because you’re the ace and getting blocked all the time means your full power isn’t good enough. Daichi is scared because he’s the captain, and Suga is scared because he has to be as good as Kageyama, and Noya is scared because he’s the libero and also because he doesn’t want to play without you.”  
She took a breath, eyes sparkling. Asahi was gazing at her, and her words seemed to sink in more than Kageyama’s. He tried not to feel too bitter about that.

“And me? I’m scared because I’m the only girl, and everyone will be judging me because of that. Everyone will be looking at me. But you know what I see, when all the faces are watching me and I’m feeling scared? You know what I see, when I jump for Kageyama’s toss?”

“The other side of the net,” he whispered, and she nodded.

  
“A tall, tall wall stands before us. None of us can breach it on our own. But we don’t have to.”

There was a long silence, in which only the bell sounded, but nobody moved.  
Kageyama found himself, for the second time in a week, completely flummoxed by this girl. He couldn’t believe that such an idiot could be so _smart_.

Asahi was also having difficulty thinking of a response, judging by the bemused look on his face. Eventually, he bowed to her, actually _bowed_ , and excused himself back inside without another word.  
Kageyama and Hinata turned to one another.

“Well,” she said, smiling to him, “I bet we’ll see him at practice.”  
Kageyama nodded dimly, still staring at her in wonder, and she looked back at him, puzzled.  
Standing there in her baggy knee-length skirt and mismatching socks (one black, one navy), fringe falling over one eye and hair struggling out of its short choppy ponytail, she looked like a scruffy kid. That is, she did not look like any of those wise sentences could have come out of her mouth.   
And yet, they did, and he was starting to think that maybe he underestim-

“Oh CRAP!” she suddenly gabbled, staring wildly around the now-empty corridor and then at her watch. “Geography!’

She dashed off down the hall, ricocheting off the corner like a fluffy orange pinball, and Kageyama was left standing in the hall, staring at the space where she’d stood next to him.

 _Who_ is _this girl_?

x

The question continued to swim in circles around his head that night, lying in bed and staring up at his star-patterned ceiling. He tried naming the constellations, tracing them in the air with his finger as he'd done countless times during his parents' divorce, but tonight it wasn't helping, and their names escaped him.

The paradox of Hinata Shouyou was taking precedence in his mind. He didn't like it.

Soon, that problem was joined by a school of others, lazily swirling around his head, but getting faster and faster until they churned and frothed his thoughts.

_Who is she? How can she jump like that? How have I never heard of her before?_  
 _Is she going to stay on the team?_  
 _Will she be kicked off for being a girl?_  
 _How will we play competitions?_

_Will everyone think we’re a joke because we’re a mixed team now?_

And the last, and strangely hardest to answer;

_Why do I keep thinking about tossing to her?_

Behind the constellations and meteors that he’d painstakingly dotted on when he was ten, the dark blue background seemed to inch closer. He felt claustrophobic.

Hanging his head out the bedroom window, he gasped in air and stared down the street, trying to take his mind off the multitude of answers that he just couldn’t find.  
If his volleyball career was uncertain before, it was nothing compared to now.

He felt panic rising in him, like the claustrophobia except worse, because it was the type of reckless panic when he had no idea what was going to happen next. It seemed stupid, but people had told him time and again that he didn’t trust his teams enough. Yet how could he trust Hinata, who didn’t really belong and might disappear at any moment? How could they hone that ‘freaky quick’, as Suga had dubbed it, if she couldn’t even enter competitions?  
How could he start trusting someone who might leave him?

 

The air wasn’t seeming to help much, and he started breathing heavier, still panicking.

Then, he caught sight of the soft orange glow of a streetlamp, and the light hanging in the air suddenly reminded him of Hinata, poised above the net, hair a brilliant halo around her head.

He fell back into bed, feeling strangely calm.  
Suddenly, the question wasn’t bothering him anymore.

 

 _Who_ is _this girl?_

He didn’t know.  
But now, he could find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After five bloody chapters, the team is finally assembled!  
> Sorry this is so slow guys, i'm just having a lot of fun investigating the possibilities of a female Hinata. I feel like this is writing itself, and I'm not totally sure where it's going but I'm okay with that.  
> Hope it's just as fun to read!
> 
> Also, I know a lot of people picture fem!Hinata with ringlets, but his hair isn't curly as much as it is flicky. I just have this image of a scruffy side-fringe and a short choppy ponytail with bits hanging out everywhere.   
> Unfortunately I am the worst drawer of all time, so you'll never see what I mean unless someone else manages to draw her. You have my permission and encouragement to try!


	6. Up In The Air

“Everyone, I  want you all to meet somebody. This is Ukai-sensei, and he’s agreed to take up his grandfather’s mantle, and coach the Karasuno team to victory once more!”

The gruff blonde nodded in the general direction of the converging players, and Takeda beamed, bespectacled eyes squinching almost to slits at the excitement of finding a genuine coach for the higglety-pigglety team before him.

It had been hard, but he’d finally managed to woo the gruff shopkeeper with the chance of being the first person to coach a mixed team to a Tokyo victory. The possibility of making waves, of shaking up the old volleyball crowd and giving them something to gawk at.

However, looking at the team before them, punting volleyballs off to the side and hurrying towards the edge of the court, his smile dimmed and he exchanged a short glance with the coach to his right.

“But,” he continued, watching the excitement on his students’ faces turn to puzzlement in a single breath, “it’s not all good news.”

Apprehension filled the spacious gym.

“Takeda-sensei tried to organise a practice match with Aoba Jousai,” Ukai cut in, mouth tightening, and Kageyama’s ears practically pricked up.

“Oikawa,” he murmured, the hairs on the back of his neck rising at the mention of the smug senior from his Junior High. To say they didn't see eye-to-eye would be like saying Asahi was a little bit timid, or HInata was a little annoying; a massive understatement.

Oikawa Tooru was basically the most condescending person Kageyama had ever had the misfortune to meet - even his _hair_ was condescending somehow - and he couldn't wait to take him down right in front of his astonishingly large and still-growing fanclub. To wipe that pretentious smirk right off that pretentious face...

 He clenched his fist, relishing the fantasy, but Daichi narrowed his eyes at the “tried” in the sentence.

“Let me guess. They refused unless we put in Kageyama?” he said, and everyone looked at the setter, who was looking regretful but unsurprised at the thought of his teammates requesting a chance to defeat him.

“You’d think so,” Takeda agreed, “but they were more bitter than that.” He didn’t seem to want to finish, and everyone came closer, alarm on their faces.  
“Hinata’s not here, right?” he added quietly, and Daichi’s eyes narrowed even more.  
“I told her that practice was cancelled, like you said…”

There was a suspicious pause.

“But there is practice,” Kageyama said, confused, and scowled as Tsukishima sarcastically clapped behind him.

“We didn’t think she should hear this…” Takeda clarified, slowly. “Basically…”

Ukai stepped forward. “They refuse to play us if she’s on the team.”

 

x

 

“What.”

The flat noise of disbelief made its way simultaneously out of the mouths of the second-years and Daichi.  
Suga, Noya, Asahi, and Tanaka were looking scandalised. Yamaguchi looked shocked. Tsukishima didn’t.

And Kageyama?

He was staring at the older men, a look of abject horror on his face before he struggled to swallow it down.

_This is it. This is what I was worried about._

_I knew it was too good to last._

The quick strike that they’d been practicing for days, and were still getting the hang of.  
Karasuno’s new secret weapon, _his_ weapon to take down Oikawa,  
was useless.

“Are they serious?” Tanaka demanded, having finally found his voice. “What are they going to do during competitions?”  
“Are they going to forfeit?” Ennoshita asked eagerly, and Asahi looked interested, but Suga’s mouth was hardening into a thin line.

“They don’t think they’ll have to,” he said, already having figured it out. “They think she won’t be allowed to compete.”

Everyone looked at the coaches.

“Are they right?” several people asked at once, and the adults shared unreadable glances.

“We’re not sure,” Takeda admitted. “It’s all up in the air at the moment.”

_Up in the air._

Kageyama almost laughed at the irony of the sentence.

  
If Oikawa was right, it was the last thing Hinata would be.

 

x

 

Everyone was silent at practice the next day.

Hinata was rushing around, yelling for tosses and shouting out “ROLLIIIIIIIIIIING THUNDERRRRR!” every time Noya so much as touched the ball, but the others were glum. Even Ukai, who had already proven himself the day before to be quite the noisy coach, was being bogged down by the mood of the court.

Eventually, even Hinata had to notice.

Pausing in the middle of the court (and having to duck to one side to avoid Tanaka’s half-hearted strike), she looked at Suga, puzzled.  
“Is there something wrong?”

Daichi made eye contact with the hazel-eyed senior from behind her, and softly shook his head.  
Suga took an almost imperceptible breath, and hoisted a smile onto his face.  
“Just exams, Hinata!”  
“But those are months away,” she said, puzzled, and was about to ask another question when there was a _WHACK_! and she staggered to one side as a volleyball hit her in the arm.

“Wha- OUCH!” She turned around, glaring at the culprit, who glared back.  
“Kageyama, that hurt!”

“Well if you didn’t stand in the middle of the court…” he snapped, getting ready to serve again, and she jumped out of the way, still bemoaning the rapidly-forming bruise on her right arm.

The seniors breathed a sigh of relief at the distraction, and started talking loudly amongst themselves to try and lift the spirits.

“Man, it’s a good thing Kageyama’s such an asshole to Hinata,” Tanaka muttered to Noya, who snickered a little. “I thought Suga was done for.”  
They looked over at the pair, still arguing in between quick-strike attempts, and their smiles fell. They couldn’t hide this forever, and they couldn’t always count on Kageyama to hit her with a volleyball by accident every time she got curious.

 

x

 

At the other end of the court, Kageyama frowned even more than usual, not listening to Hinata raging at him over her arm.  
He couldn’t distract her like that forever.

 

x

 

As the weeks progressed, and the third school in a row refused a practice match against the Karasuno team, Hinata was starting to get antsy.

“Man, I thought we would have played against a real team by now!” she moaned, wheeling her bike along next to the others on the way home after practice. It had finished late that day, and the sunset was streaking through the clouds, blood red light pouring itself over the horizon and staining the clouds in the west. In the streaky light, Hinata’s hair looked more fiery than ever, and her eyes shone. Kageyama looked at his shoes.

 _Stop staring, idiot,_ he thought angrily, and tried to concentrate on how to answer her. Luckily, Noya was on distraction duty, and he had the perfect solution.

“Shou-chan, do you want a pork bun?” he asked quickly, and Hinata beamed, distracted by her stomach as usual. They all jumped in quickly, yelling out orders and begging one another for money (Tanaka wanted  _five_ , but Daichi wouldn't let him) in an effort to keep the spirit going. 

The steaming hot food did seem to take all their minds off the predicament facing their team, and they sighed, relishing the warm buns after a particularly gruelling practice session. Kageyama was fairly sure Ukai was taking out his frustration at the other teams by making his own do fifteen minutes of burpees and push-ups across the court. _At least we will be fit and ready,_  he thought, _when a team finally agrees to play us._

_If anyone ever does._

 

As HInata wheeled off that evening, pedalling leisurely and yelling “GOODBYE!” around a mouthful of dough, the others were silent again. They knew what they were all thinking about, glumly watching the dust swirl around their footsteps on the way home.

Everyone was used to Hinata by now. Her odd comments, her hyperactive behaviour. Her inability to serve, although it still gave Kageyama the occasional aneurysm and was the source of much comedy for Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.  
It was kind of like she was just one of the guys, they agreed (Kageyama nodded fervently along with the rest). The only time they remembered she wasn’t was when someone forgot to unlock the girls’ changing rooms as well as the guys’, and she would have to ask for the key from a red-faced Tanaka.

Yes, the only thing weird about her was her ability to zip through the air at the speed of light, and hit the tosses that even the ace couldn’t get – her and Kageyama’s ability to sync with one another like they were sharing thoughts. To say nothing of her ability to race around the court without breaking a sweat, and still be leaping around annoying the ever-loving hell out of Kageyama later. Seeing her soar up to the net and smack the ball with blind accuracy was a constant and welcome novelty.

They loved to watch her fly.

It left the bitterest taste in their mouths that she would never fly on a real court, against a real team, because she wore a skirt to school instead of trousers.

 

x

But the next practice, Takeda rushed in waving a piece of paper and coughing with the effort of his sprint.

"Garbage dump...battle...Thursday... agreed... Hinata..." he choked out, and everyone looked confused. 

"Nek-" he tried again, before Kiyoko guided him to a chair and handed him a bottle of water.

There was a general murmer of "...what?" around the gym, and Ukai sighed, getting ready to translate for them.

"We've got a practice match against our old rivals, Nekoma, next Thursday. Hinata is going to be a starting member."

 

Everyone turned in unison to their sole female player, staring wide-eyed at the coach and looking like she was going to be sick.

 

“I’m going to be a _what_?!”


	7. The First Mistake

As the week drew on, the team was abuzz with a palpable nervous energy, and it fed into their practice sessions, with everyone putting in their top effort (except Tsukishima, who played like he always played; annoyingly well). Noya was running around so much he was like a small, pointy blur. Asahi was honing his thundering strikes, fearful of disappointing the team again. Even Kageyama, who prided himself on staying calm, was slowly getting more and more desperate to perfect the freaky quick strike. Hinata was spiking most of them, but ‘most’ wasn’t ‘all’, and he had visions of their grand debut starting with a toss to the face. Not for the first time, he wished their strategy didn’t depend on her keeping her eyes closed. Then again, asking her jump, aim, and spike all at once was probably a tall order, as Hinata was not as such a capable multi-tasker. Even successfully walking while talking was barely within her abilities.

Only Daichi and Suga seemed immune from nerves, and Kageyama guessed that it was because of one of three reasons;  
1) That they are seniors and seniors don’t get nervous  
2) That they don’t need to be nervous as Karasuno is definitely going to win, or  
3) That they don’t need to be nervous as Karasuno is definitely going to lose.

He fervently hoped it was the second.

The seniors did appear to have faith in them, and he needed bucketloads of that, because after Hinata got caught in the net for the third time it seemed like faith and luck would be all they had.

 _Maybe I should start praying_ , he thought during their latest practice session, and was immediately lost in a daydream of whether he would go to hell for only praying to win a volleyball game.

He immediately dismissed that; if he didn’t pray for this volleyball game, what on earth would he pray for?  
This game against Nekoma was important.  
Win or lose, would be their first as a team, and if they bombed it then their chances of winning any in the future would be almost zero. On the other hand, if they put up a good fight or even won, everyone would be pumped up for Inter-High. They needed confidence, a display of unity, and most of all, for Hinata not to be playing like she had been for the last hour.

 

That is, terribly.

He wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but she wasn’t jumping. At least, he couldn’t label the half-hearted little hops as such; she barely got off the ground, and he found he was tossing lower and lower until the ball refused to go over the net anymore.  
It pissed him off.

After twenty more minutes of the same damn thing, he lost it.  
Striding over to her, landing stiffly after another failed spike, his face was a comical mixture of worry and annoyance.  
He saw the way she was hunched over, hands over her tummy, and knew what was wrong.  
He _thought_.

“Oi, Hinata! You ate icecream before practice again, didn’t you?!” he barked. “Idiot, quit wasting my time with your diet!”  
He got even more frustrated when she didn’t reply. “Are you even listening to me, dumbass?”

Her shoulders stooped over even more, and he barely heard her whisper in reply.

“Hah?” he demanded, and actually took a step back as she jerked her head up, face scrunched up in a mixture of pain and sudden fury.

“I said, I _didn’t_ , so stop yelling!” she roared in response, and everyone turned to watch them. She didn’t appear to notice, expression dropping as her sudden anger subsided and her lip trembled.

Her large brown eyes suddenly filled with tears.

Kageyama stood there, mouth open a little, as her bottom lip trembled and her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs.

“Why are you always so mean to me?” she managed, and the droplets suddenly spilled over, trickling unchecked down her cheeks and collecting at the tip of her chin.

Horrified, he looked around for help, but his teammates seemed as flummoxed as he was.

”Hinata,” Suga tried, gently, but she was angrily dashing the back of one hand against her wet eyes and glaring at Kageyama again.

“I HATE you!” she yelled without warning, and he felt his stomach drop as she dashed over to her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and sprinted out of the gym.

x

Walking home, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Hinata had never gotten that angry at him- usually she was too scared to do more than flush and stutter- and he couldn’t say it was an enjoyable experience.  
But still, did she really have to cry about it? He was tough on her, but someone had to be. She annoyed him, and he yelled at her. That was how their partnership had always worked. That was how they related to each other.

Did it get to Hinata more than he thought?  
Did she really hate him?

He called her dumbass a lot - in fact it was more of a nickname than anything now- but she called him plenty of names too, and anyway neither of them could really say that they were good at school. Hinata could just as easily turn around and call him out for getting a zero grade on their last algebra test, if she wanted.

 _But she doesn’t_ , his treacherous brain replied, and he tried not to feel guilty about that.

As always, whatever he was thinking about tended to emerge in his speech, and today Hinata kept making guest appearances in their conversations, all struggling up the hill and puffing excitedly about the Nekoma match in two days.  
He could hear himself doing it – talking about her over and over, how her strike was getting better but her receives and serves were still crap, and how she got kicked out of class for laughing too loudly at her own joke, and how it was so weird that she snapped like that, the dumbass, she knew he never meant it seriously, didn’t she, and what do you guys think?

Eventually, Tsukishima (walking a little way ahead of them as usual, headphones on in the background of Yamaguchi’s chatter) turned around and stared at him.

”Relax, _King_. It’s just that time of the month.”

“It’s what?” Tanaka and Noya asked simultaneously, as the seniors looked embarrassed and Kageyama glared at the nickname.

”I know that. And stop calling me King.”

But after the blonde left, Yamaguchi meandering along next to him and waving them off, he turned to Suga.

“What did he mean, that time of the month? What time of the month? It’s just a usual Wednesday. Do girls always get angry on Wednesdays or something?”

Daichi chortled and Asahi went beet red, mumbling an excuse and dashing further down the road.  
Suga was smiling knowledgeably at the second-years and Kageyama, all staring at him curiously.

“I’ll let you Google that in your own time,” he said gently, and they nodded.  
“Not Images!” Daichi added hastily, adding to their confusion, and Suga laughed in agreement.

Later, after the others had gone, Suga remained, walking along with Kageyama down the road. Suddenly he turned and gently pulled the other setter to a halt.

“Do you have anything on today?” he asked quietly, and Kageyama shook his head, thinking about the pile of homework waiting on his desk and deciding he’d just copy off Hinata tomorrow.  
“Why?”  
“I think we should go apologise to Hinata.”

Kageyama’s eyebrows shot up, and he tried to remain impassive. “You want me to _what_? I don’t need to do that! Besides, I don’t even know where she lives, and I can’t just go to her house! I’ve never been there,” he babbled all at once, and the senior wiggled his finger.  
“I have her address. You can’t get out of it that easily. Besides, I know you’ve been worrying about it.”  
“Yeah? How?” he scoffed.  
“Because you brought her up about thirty times in a twenty-minute conversation.”  
“Oh.”

 

x

 

It was stupid, feeling so nervous, but he wasn’t sure which was scaring him more; the impending Nekoma game, or facing an emotional Hinata in her own home.  
“This is like walking into the lion’s den,” he hissed at Suga as they stood outside her door. The other setter looked faintly amused.  
“Oh, come on. It’s just Hinata; she’s about a foot shorter than you and built like a toothpick. Why are you so afraid?”  
He wasn’t sure.  
Presumably, the fact that although he could theoretically flatten Hinata in a fight, it wasn’t her fists he was worried about.  
It was her words.

Ringing the doorbell, he winced as he heard stomping, and suddenly the door flew open.  
The petite redhead was strangling the doorknob, other hand clasped around a family-size bar of chocolate, and her face was alteratively red (from crying) and brown (from hoeing into the chocolate, he assumed). It was a pitiful image, but it brought forth another wave of guilt, and he cursed the fact that Hinata was making him feel like utter crap for the second time in their partnership. Although at least this time nobody had been knocked unconscious. _Yet_.

She glared at them suspiciously.  
“Did you bring icecream?” she asked. “I don’t want to talk to anyone, so unless you brought icecream then that includes you.”

  
Kageyama skipped a beat, unsure if she actually just said that. “Um. No?”  
She scowled even harder, making to shut the door on them, but he threw himself forward, grabbing her wrist.

  
They both froze in surprise.

  
“I-“ he blurted, dropping her hand like it was red hot, and she paused with the door still open.  
“ _What?”_  
“I’m sorry I made you cry,” he muttered ungraciously, and Hinata looked surprised. “Sometimes I just forget that you’re really a baby and-“  
He cut himself off as Suga stamped viciously on his foot, still smiling angelically at Hinata.  
“Uh, anyway, I just came to say that you’re not an idiot. Well, I mean you are, but that’s not all I think of you as.” He blurted, then realised how it sounded as one of Suga’s eyebrows cranked up a notch.  
“I mean, no! I don’t _think_ of you, not like that way, or really at all, I just think of you as like a person…kind of…thing…” he trailed off. “You’re pretty cool, I guess. It’s nice to play with you, amazing actually, because nobody could get my spikes before you came along, and now we have this secret weapon that nobody will find out about until the competition, and we can use it against Oikawa and punish him for not wanting to play against you, and it’ll be totally-“  
“What?’

Kageyama ground to a halt, confused. The smile slowly rising on Hinata’s face had slid off abruptly, and he backtracked through his juddery monologue, trying to figure out what he’d said.  
His eyes widened as he realised.  
“Oh, uh…”  
“The Great King? He didn’t want to play me?” she demanded, looking stunned, and Suga was covering his eyes with one hand, as if trying to pretend that Kageyama hadn’t just well and truly screwed them all over.  
“Ah… Well, we don’t _know_ for sure that it was him. But they refused to play us, yes.”  
Her expression was difficult to read. “Because of me?”  
He nodded, unwillingly, and she leant against the door a little. She didn’t look too upset, just a little pissed off, and that could well be leftover anger from her outburst at the gym. He was just starting to think that they were out of the woods when she asked the question everyone had been dreading.

“Were they the only school that refused?”

Their silence told her everything, and she staggered a little, face contorted. “ _Everyone_ refused? Until Nekoma?”  
“Yes,” Suga spoke up, obviously deciding it was too dangerous to let Kageyama talk anymore. “The coaches are investigating whether they were right in saying you might not be able to compete. But don’t worry, we’ll keep you informed and-“

  
“Wait.” she said, breathing heavily. “You all knew? You _all knew_ , and nobody told me?”

  
Again, their silence was confirmation enough. She looked furious.  
“I can’t believe this. You were all keeping it from me? I knew something was up, I knew it! And you guys laughed at m- wait a second, I even asked you!” She was pointing a shaking finger at Suga, remembering, and Kageyama winced a little. “I asked you…” she switched to pointing at Kageyama, “…and YOU hit a ball at me to distract me!”  
“To be fair,” Kageyama began, “you were in the middle of the c-“  
“SHUT UP!” she suddenly screamed, looking angrier than she had ever seen her. “I can’t believe this, I can’t believe you all! Lying to me this whole time-“  
“Hinata, we were trying to keep you in the team-“  
“By _excluding_ me? By keeping secrets from me? Is that how a team is?”  
The setters were feeling rapidly out of their depth, faced with a fuming Hinata who was asking all the wrong questions.  
“We didn’t want you to quit over it. We wanted you to feel like you belonged,” Suga said, gentler now, and Hinata looked like he’d slapped her.  
“Well, you screwed that up, didn’t you?” she whispered, and her face hardened as she looked at Kageyama. “I thought we were friends. I thought _you’d_ tell me; you don’t usually care about stuff like feelings.”  
He looked like _he_ had been slapped this time.

“Oh, and don’t you guys worry about being able to compete,” she continued, angrily. “I quit.”

And she slammed the door in their faces.

 

Suga turned to Kageyama, horrified. “What do we do? What will the team do? Kageyama, I cannot believe you just said that!”  
Kageyama couldn’t believe he said it either.

“I don’t know,” he said, voice hollow. “I don’t know! Shit, Suga, is she serious?!”  
There was a pause.  
“Maybe she’s just emotional,” Suga said slowly, turning away. “Maybe she’ll be back at practice tomorrow.”

x

 

No such luck for Kageyama; the next day, Hinata was nowhere in sight, and his fervent hope that Suga was right was being dashed in front of his eyes. The loud redhead was conspiciously missing from their warm-up, and he realised he hadn't actually seen her all day. Not that he usually looked for her or anything.  
The senior was currently hissing to Daichi why their resident spiker was missing, and the captain’s face was slowly dropping in horror.  
Kageyama winced.

_Maybe nobody else will notice, and I can try to persuade her to come back before-_

“Where’s Hinata?” Noya asked, looking around. Daichi looked angrily over at Kageyama.  
“Why don’t we let our new _genius setter_ explain that one?”

There was a pause.

“You _didn’t…_ ” Ennoshita said, a little horrified, as Ukai sighed through his teeth. “Did you?”

‘Oh yes,” Daichi clarified, glare intensifying as Kageyama stared at the ground. “He went and told Hinata how nobody would play against us whilst she was in the team, and how we’d been hiding it from her all this time!”

Tsukishima whistled as Tanaka and Noya looked appalled. “Nice going, _King_. Ready for your medal now?”

It was a testament to Kageyama’s distress that he didn’t even bother flipping him off. Instead, he clamped his arms around his stomach, feeling awful in more ways than one.  
“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” he muttered, and Daichi clucked his teeth.  
From behind them, Kiyoko magically appeared with a medikit and a bottle of water.

“Should I talk to her?” she suggested, quietly, handing it over to Kageyama.  
“You can try.” Suga was looking saddened. “She wouldn’t even talk to me today.”

  
“ I saw her crying in the courtyard.” Asahi chipped in, and everyone looked at Kageyama with accusing stares.

Tanaka actually advanced towards him, fist clenching, before Daichi yanked him back.  
“You made her cry, you asshole!”  
“Tanaka, stop, he feels bad enough already!”

It was true. The ache in his stomach was getting worse, and he excused himself, grabbing his bag and walking home. Nobody tried to convince him to stay. He wasn't surprised, really, after the gigantic fuck-up he'd just made.

 

Their partnership was over. He had well and truly made sure of that.  
Hinata would never forgive him for this.

Her face floated to the surface of his thoughts, contorted with anger as she screamed how she hated him, followed by its transition from appalled to quietly betrayed as she slammed the door in their faces.  
Both times he had been responsible for that face.

He closed his eyes, accepting the pain in his middle as his punishment, and walked home by himself.


	8. We Need You, Chibi-Chan

Not playing volleyball was like living with a hole in her heart.

It ached, a dull pang when she looked at her volleyball shoes or walked past the ball lying in her room. She felt like a piece of her was missing, a small but important piece, and the more she tried to ignore it the wider the space got, until it felt like her whole body was just a mass of _missing, not there, very very gone._  
She didn’t really feel like herself anymore.

Perhaps the hole hurt the most because she hadn’t had anything taken from her.  
She had taken it from herself.

She couldn’t pretend anyone else was responsible. She had been mad at the team, furious even, for not trusting her enough to tell her. Betrayal, ugly and black, had filled her vision and she still remembered Kageyama’s face as she coldly told them she quit.

_You don’t usually care about stuff like feelings._

She had wanted to hurt him, wanted them to stop looking at her with those expressions of pity and caution. Judging by the way he had jerked his head back, she’d succeeded.  
She wished it made her feel better. It didn’t.

No, no matter how angry she had been, she couldn’t really pretend that she was angry at anyone more than at herself.

Stupid, foolish girl. Trying to pretend she was just as good as the boys. Worse, thinking that they would _trust_ her, and treat her as a full member of the team.

She should have known she was just the mascot. The brat. The annoying kid that they kept in because they felt _sorry_ for her.

Clenching her fist, she tried to keep back the tears from spurting as she walked through the corridors, feeling ashamed and foolish and very, very lonely.

 

x

 

“Hinata-“  
“No.”

“Hinata, please-“  
_“No.”_

“Shou-chan-“

She whirled around, turning on Noya with an intensely pissed-off expression, and he gulped at the fury in her usually innocent brown eyes.  
“Don’t you DARE call me that,” she snapped, pointing one slim finger at him. “It’s _Hinata_. If you can’t take me seriously in volleyball, at least take me seriously outside of it.”  
Asahi bit his lip. He was obviously tossing up whether to risk putting in his opinion or not, but judging by the way he was currently hiding behind Tanaka, she guessed he had decided against it. Smart man.

Students were spilling around and through the small group clustered just outside the gates, talking at high volume and reluctantly clutching homework sheets. It was the afternoon, time for volleyball practice, and she wished they’d go off to it and leave her alone. Interventions such as these did nothing except piss her off even further.

She tried to calculate her chances of sprinting to the bike shed and pedalling off before one of them caught her. She had to admit they weren’t good; Asahi could take two steps for every five of hers, and he could probably dismantle her bike in seconds.  
She was trapped, and they knew it.

_Damn tactical bastards._

“We do take you seriously,” Daichi began, and she raised her eyebrows.  
“ _Shou-chan, dumbass Hinata, idiot_? Is that what you call respect?”  
“To be fair,” Suga said in a gentle voice. “Most of those were Kageyama, and you should hear the names he’s been associated with-“  
“I’ll say! Asshole, King, Grouchy-yama, Bakayama-“  
“Tanaka!”  
“What? You said-“  
“Yes, but not in _front_ of him!”

From his position behind Daichi, she could see Kageyama scowling at them, but his face changed as they made eye contact. There was an expression of regret in his dark blue eyes, and she swallowed, remembering what she had said to him when they came to her house. She had been emotional, sure, but it was still mean.

To her surprise, he stepped forward, eyes still fixed on hers. The group parted as one to let him through, a school of fish in unison.

  
“Hinata,” he began, and it was odd to hear it without the usual prefix of ‘dumbass’. “We lied because we were trying to keep you in the team. Don’t you think that means we need you?”  
“You only need me for the quick strike,” she muttered, unwillingly, and he stepped closer.  
“Hinata, do you know what people are going to be looking at when the game starts?”His head was angled down to hers, and his sharp-eyed gaze was so intense that she couldn’t look away. “You said it yourself; they’ll be watching you. No one can believe that a girl is standing on the same court as the boys. You’ll capture their attention in a heartbeat, and they’ll want to see what it is that you can do, that puts you on the same playing level. And when they see our strike…” one corner of his mouth lifted in a slightly evil grin, and she swallowed again.

It was the closest to a smile she had ever seen from him, and it wasn’t unattractive.

Not at all.

“They’ll keep watching,” she whispered in response, and his grin intensified. “Exactly. They’ll be watching you the whole time, and while the team is concentrated on you…”  
“..We’ll be open!” Tanaka announced, slapping Asahi on the back and making him choke. The sudden outburst from the boisterous spiker broke the tension, and she blinked away from Kageyama at last, realising that they had been standing a lot closer together than she thought.  
Apparently he noticed too, because a tinge of pink rose on his cheekbones and he stepped back hurriedly.

She felt confused, but the captain was saying something, and she decided to puzzle it out later.  
“You’re our secret weapon!” Daichi said, and everyone nodded. “You’re Karasuno’s decoy.”

_Karasuno’s… decoy?_

The others watched apprehensively as she mouthed the words, testing them alongside her name. It was no Small Giant, sure, but it wasn’t bad.  
A smile crept onto her lips, and it spread around the team, until they were all standing there grinning like idiots.  
Except Kageyama, who was frowning at her as usual. His gaze was different, though, and she was trying to figure out why-

“So let’s make a deal,” Suga suddenly suggested, still smiling. “You want to prove yourself, right? You want to see if you can be the strongest decoy. So play the match with us against Nekoma, and prove to yourself and to all of us that you’ll live up to that title. This is our chance to make everyone regret refusing matches against us. Are you ready?”

She clenched her fist, and a fierce expression blazed in her eyes. “I’m ready.”

“Good, because the match is in fifteen minutes.”

 " _HAH?!"_

x

 

To the eternal credit of the Nekoma High School volleyball team, not one of them made a single comment as Hinata dashed into the gym behind the others, still in her uniform but clutching her P.E kit tightly in her arms.  
They were an odd-looking team; none particularly eye-catching or rowdy, no obvious ace or setter. The small kid, almost as short as her, could be a libero; but then, _Hinata_ wasn’t exactly a human stepladder and she was a starting middle blocker. The scary-looking guy with the black flicky hair was a mystery; his dyed-blonde companion even more so. Any one of them, she realised, could play any position.  
She grinned. This was going to be interesting.

Then the grin faded from her face as Ukai gathered the teams around and she realised she was still in a skirt.  
“Ummm…” she piped up, face going red. “Can I have the key to the…”  
As Tanaka thrust it into her palm, flushing as always, the scary guy leaned forward, a twisted grin on his face.  
“Can you show our setter where the bathroom is?” he purred, corners of his mouth almost unmoving. “He needs to go seven minutes before every game. Like clockwork.”  
“Shut up, Kuroo,” the blonde murmured, stepping forward and following a still-flushing Hinata out of the circle and towards the bathroom doors.

Away from the group, she looked at him curiously.  
“You’re a setter?”  
He nodded, face expressionless, and her eyes widened.  
“Whaaaa! You’re so different from our setter…” she forced her fringe forward and squinched up her face as much as possible, “… the guy who always looks like this. He’s so grumpy!”  
The blonde didn’t reply, walking steadily alongside her, and she fell to thinking.  
“I’m Hinata Shouyou, by the way. First year.”  
“Kozume Kenma. Second.”  
She blanched as they neared the doors, “Crap! Sorry!” she blurted, before realising that saying ‘crap’ to a second year was actually worse than what she had said so far. “I didn’t know, I-“  
“Don’t.”  
He continued as she slowed to a halt before the girl’s bathrooms, looking at him with a confused expression.

“Treating me differently for being older than you is like me treating you differently for being a girl.”

His feline eyes regarded her calmly, and she realised that what she had previously perceived as passive disinterest was quiet analysis. He had seen her, talked to her for twenty seconds, and he could already tell exactly how to persuade her to his point of view.  
_Now_ she saw a setter in him.  
“You’re… right,” she stammered out, eventually. “Of course you’re right. Sorry! I mean, no-“  
He simply continued forward into the darkness of the bathrooms, and after a pause she darted into her own, prompted by Kageyama urging her to hurry up from the other side of the court.

Pulling on her volleyball shorts over her shoes, she grinned, thinking about the match, the Nekoma team, and blonde enigma named Kenma that came with it.

_Kozume Kenma, Nekoma Setter;_   
_Let’s see how you play._


	9. Battle of the Garbage Dump!

_They’ll be watching,_  
they had said.

_They’ll be watching._

When the Karasuno team had said that, ten minutes ago, Kageyama was pretty sure they hadn’t been meaning anything like _this_ to happen. He wasn’t sure who had sent the first text, but by one way or another a sizeable crowd of curious onlookers had squished into the Karasuno gym and were currently standing around, all murmuring and looking in the same direction.  
That is, towards the tiny middle blocker, tying her hair up with a raggedy emerald scrunchie and trying – failing - to subtly wipe her hands on her shorts. Her eyes were a little wide with nervousness, and her lips were pressed together in concentration, but all in all she wasn’t falling apart as he feared she had.  
Still, the setter was worried.

Kageyama was many things. A setter, first and foremost. A douchebag – there was no denying that. An idiot, sometimes, and equally the least sympathetic person on the planet. He knew all these things – hell, he’d been told them enough times – and they cropped up time and again, whenever he wasn’t being careful, as he had been trying to do lately after making Hinata cry. He knew they were true, most of the time.

However, that wasn’t to say he was completely brainless, and one would have to be if they didn’t realise exactly how hard this would be for Hinata.  
Kageyama was frequently glad that he wasn’t on the receiving end of some of Asahi’s spikes, or his own serves for that matter. Those things looked like they could separate heads from shoulders. Even Noya, though he appeared to be made of rubber half the time, always finished practice with a nice purple hue rising up his forearms, and Daichi was not immune to wincing once or twice during a game.

But Hinata? She was, for all her blustering and bouncing and general happy-go-luckiness, still delicate by volleyball standards.  
Smaller than them. Thinner than them. Softer than them.  
Plus, she bruised like a frickin’ _peach_.

Basically, Kageyama was a little worried that she was going to get knocked unconscious again, or worse, and it was messing with his head.

“Hinata!” he barked, out of the blue, and she whirled around, scrunchie dropping to the court.  
“What?” she said a little irritably, reaching for it, and blanched as he glared. “Um, I mean, excuse me?”  
“Just…” he muttered, unable to believe the words were falling from his lips. “Be careful, okay?”

She looked at him with an unreadable expression. Somewhere between puzzlement, embarrassment, and- was it really? – gratitude.  
  
“Okay,” she said, finally, and held her pinky out to him. He was unsure what to do about it until she stepped closer and attempted to link it with his own.

“D-dumbass!” he spluttered, staggering back and actually holding his hands in the air, out of reach. “What do you think you’re doing?!”  
“It’s a pinky promise!” she said, sounding put out, and he struggled to control the red rising in his forehead and cheeks. “Natsu and I do it all the time!”  
“What are you, a kid?” he scoffed, voice sounding weird to his own ears.  
“No, but she is! Come on, Bakayama, just do i-“  
She broke off as a loud whisper carried through the gym, just as the other team finished their strategising and fell silent.

“Man, that short chick is pretty cute, huh?”

_Saved by the asshole._

Kageyama whirled around, glad for the distraction but also inexplicably furious at whoever made the comment. The kid, a spotty second-year with unfortunate hair and a _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ tee under his open shirt, actively shrunk back from his glare.  
“Sorry, man…” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to hit on her if she’s taken.”

_TAKEN???_

Kageyama staggered a little, and Hinata looked completely flummoxed, but Tanaka was roaring with laughter behind them.

“Oh, you think she’s cute _now_ …” he said, grinning evilly. “But just you wait to see her spikes. _Then_ we’ll see if she’s still cute.”  
Hinata was blushing to the roots of her hair. The second-year was almost looking impressed, but then Noya stepped forward and whispered.  
“She is still cute then, though! When she lands it, and she grins all over her little face-“  
“I know!” Tanaka hissed, grabbing his hair and shoving his head down. “I was just making her look tough in front of her admirers! Noya, sometimes you are so _dense_.”  
“Whaaa! Sorry, Hinata-chan! You’re tough AND cute!”  
“Noya! You can’t be both!”  
“ _Tanaka, are you saying I’m not cute and tough_?”  
‘Y-you’re different! I-”

Hinata had her head in her hands, and Kageyama was just standing there watching her face turn from rosy pink to full-blown beetroot, wondering how she was cute, but then Ukai blew the whistle and the whole _Cute Hinata_ thing went out the window as they took their positions,  
and waited.

He felt adrenaline surge through his body. A chorus of ‘Nice serve!’ sounded from the Nekoma team opposite them, and Kageyama watched cautiously as Pudding-head ( _what had Hinata called him? Kenma_?) took the first serve, casually punting it over the net and into Asahi’s waiting forearms.  
His breathing slowed. He waited.  
The ball arced into the air, curving towards the setter poised to toss, and his mind was already whirling at a hundred miles an hour.

Trajectory.  
Position.  
Destination.  
Speed.  
Strategy of the opponent.

All those things formed themselves into one in his brain, a mish-mash of calculations and peripheral observations, until he was left with one answer.

 _The quick strike._  
_Straight to her._

He could sense her ambling towards the net, the opponents waiting patiently to block the tiny figure before them, before she spun on her heel and darted, like a silverfish, straight to the other side-  
The ball flicked off his steady fingers, she leapt into the air-  
Eyes squeezed shut and hand winding back to snap forward-

Straight into the curving path of the toss.

The ball slammed forward over the net, bouncing neatly against the back corner of the court and shooting off towards the wall of the gym. Nekoma were frozen in their receiving positions, mouths a little open and eyes blinking as their brains struggled to process the attack.

Silence, complete and dense as fog, crept through the Karasuno gym.

As one, everyone turned to stare at Hinata Shouyou, palm a crackling scarlet and face a mixture of surprise and satisfaction.

Then, Noya and Tanaka were slapping her on the back again and everyone was talking at once, the spectators all murmuring and cheering and marvelling at the phenomenon unravelling before them.  
Hinata didn’t look like much of a phenomenon- to be honest, in her shock she looked a little like someone had slapped her in the face with a wet mackerel- but he could sense a changing tide in her emotions, an excitement and thrill rising through her whole body. When it reached her eyes, they seemed to glow with intensity, and she turned to him.  
“One more,” she said, and he smiled again, that unfamiliar twitch of the corner of his mouth.  
“One more.”

“Let’s go!”

x

In volleyball, Kageyama noted, time didn’t flow as it usually did. As the match changed tempo, as intensity ran high and tension dried the sweat beading on his face, moments seemed to alternatively shoot past and stretch out like rubber. Serving the ball took an age. Waiting to receive, even longer. Slow motion.

But tossing? It felt like time crawled to a halt, freezing the ball and the players and the air around them in place, before the ball touched his fingers and rocketed off to the spiker. Time drew itself in, then pinged back out at lightening speed. That was what made him such a great setter; the ability to see everything at once, to simultaneously observe and calculate and decide and act.

However it messed with his head a little, and thus he could never be sure exactly how long they’d been playing. It was ironic that he had the best spatial awareness of the team; yet couldn’t tell the difference between a twenty-minute game and an hour-long one.  
So, it was a bit of a shock to look up and see that they were already coming into the third set.

The first two had flashed by, with Hinata leaping up and down and getting everyone's attention like always. Pudding-kun adapted quicker than they'd thought, but even then it was obvious that his teammates (especially the flicky-haired one) were still keeping a close eye on Hinata. Which, true to Daichi and Suga's strategising, left plenty of room for Tanaka and Asahi to get their own shots in. Their strategy was working, but he didn't miss the way that Hinata looked when he passed the serve to someone else - disappointed, and a little mortified if she'd yelled out something tough like she was prone to do, but satisfied at the same time. Oh, but she was one hell of a distraction, leaping for the ball every time like it was her last chance.

Their little decoy was truly living up to her name. He almost found  _himself_ being drawn in by her raw energy, that blaring presence in his peripheral vision that screamed for the toss. 

It was all very promising, until they reached the beginning of the third set, and Nekoma were playing a hell of a lot savvier than they'd expected. Clearly Pudding-kun had sorted out their strategy in the set break. 

_Damnit._

Now, it was 5-all.  
Hinata to serve.

This was a dangerous situation to begin with, because Hinata had a reputation for making one of about every 100 serves successfully. They really wanted this point, too, to try and break Nekoma’s streak. He hoped this would be the one percent that she actually got right.  
_Yeah, cause that’s_ just _how your luck works, Kageyama_ , he thought, looking anxiously over at the redhead waiting to serve.  
She didn’t look too nervous, though, standing there with the ball in her hands until-

_wheeep!_

“Goooo, cutie-chan!”

The obnoxious second year was back, this time with a crowd of mates, all wolf-whistling and whirling their jackets around, and he was about to tell Hinata to ignore them when he realised she had already flung the ball into the air at the whistle’s blow-  
She visibly stumbled at the catcall, and clumsily slapped her hand forward to serve-  
He turned to face the team and prayed for it to go over-  
_Anywhere but the net, anywhere but the net, anywhere but the-_

_WHACK._

“Gak-“ he spluttered out in reflex, as something rocketed into the back of his skull and bounced off.

_What the hell??_

He turned around, furious, to see who had hit him, but instead was met with the sight of a trembling Hinata, watching the ball roll away after impact with wide eyes.  
She looked up to face him.

“Did you just-“ he began, furiously, before Tanaka roared with laughter from beside him.  
“Nice headshot, chibi-chan!” he heard Tsukishima cackle, as Suga frantically tried to shut them up, but the throbbing in the back of his head was making him almost irrationally angry.

“Hinata,” he growled, striding towards her, “what the FUCK was that for?!”  
She looked like she was going to wet herself. “I’m sorry! I was just so nervous and then I got distracted when they yelled at me and I-“  
He towered over her. She visibly gulped.  
“pleasedon’thurtmeKageyamai’mreallysorry-“  
“Hinata,” he said again. “Shut up and stop fucking up. People are going to yell at you and stare at you and whistle at you because you are a girl, and a talented one at that. If you serve into my head every time someone makes a comment about you, I am going to end up with half a skull.”  
“Sorry…” she murmured again, looking cautiously hopeful.  
“Feel better?”  
“A little, now that I know you’re not going to punch me-“  
“I wouldn’t rule it out. Just pull yourself together, and get used to being a girl on a male volleyball team. You’re going to be here for a while.”

Striding back, he picked up the ball and tossed it to the next server.  
“Oh, and Hinata?”

He looked back at her with a face of stone.  
“Don’t serve into my head. Ever. Again.”  
“Yes, sir!” she blurted, and he almost smiled as he turned back to face the Nekoma team, who were all chuckling except for the blonde.  
He was staring at Hinata with his customary blank expression, just with a flicker of curiosity this time.

That was the kind of person she was, after all.  
The kind that can stir curiosity even in a guy like Kozume Kenma.

“Let’s go! Nice serve!”  
“Kageyama, your head okay?”

“Shut up,” he growled, feeling the pain in his head, and any nice thoughts of Hinata dried up like a puddle in the summer sun.

_Bloody Hinata. If she’s concussed me, I’ll kick her ass._

 

x

Daichi was unsurprised when the match ended in a loss for the Karasuno High Volleyball team. With the mish-mash calling itself a team in front of him, the shoddy serves and receives they’d done, and the general distracting racket of Hinata’s new and unwanted fan club, it was kind of inevitable. Clearly, they had a long way to go before regionals.

However, there were a few surprises.

First, that Hinata appeared to be running on nothing but hot air, because she was still rocketing around the court like a little orange race car even as the third set drew to a close.  
Second, that their decoy strategy had worked so well, and Tanaka/Asahi had managed to spike relatively unblocked – at least until the unsettlingly observant Nekoma setter figured out their plan.  
And third, the most important of all, that Kageyama didn’t murder Hinata for serving into his head.

Watching them bicker over the fountain, Hinata spraying him with water and running away cackling into the evening grass, the captain appreciated that this was a very different Kageyama than the one who had knocked her out only weeks ago.

And if that was the growth of merely weeks… what would change before the inter-high competition?

Kageyama Tobio had always been a lone player – as a setter, that had rendered him almost useless to Daichi, a person who valued teamwork above almost all else. Everyone was familiar with the story of the King of the Court. Yet today, Kageyama had doled out the tosses like they were Christmas presents. Today, he had comforted Hinata- in his gruff and painfully awkward Kageyama way- and told her;  
_You’re going to be here for a while._

as in,

_You're part of the team now. Dumbass._

  
Seeing Kageyama admit someone else was talented, and a girl at that, was definitely a very different side of him.

But seeing Kageyama also trying (and failing) not to stare at said girl shaking water from her orange locks, he wondered what else was changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have been so sweet with your comments! Dayam.
> 
> Should i keep going with this? is the novelty wearing off? I'm not running out of ideas by any means but i don't want the fic to lose its spark!  
> let me know your thoughts in the comments xxx


	10. The Second Mistake

Hinata Shouyou was driving him _crazy_.

As a setter, he knew where everyone was positioned, all the time. It was his freaking _job_. He had to know where they were, what they were doing, where they were headed, or else the toss would go haywire and he would look like an asshole.

Usually, his hyper-awareness – like his warped perception of time- would cease after the whistle blow signalling the end of practice. All his senses would revert to normal. He would just be himself, again, Kageyama Tobio, blind to everyone and unobservant as all hell.  
No _emotions_. No _noticing_. None of that complicated crap.

But now?

Now was a different story.

The whistle would sound, practice would be over, everyone would grab their bags and head off to the changing rooms, and he would be left there.

Standing.  
Staring.  
_Noticing_.

Watching her pick up her stuff, remind Tanaka for the key, and meander off to the changing room, setting her hair free of its scrunchie as she went.  
Occasionally, this would be followed by images in his head of what she would be doing in there, and he’d go furiously beetroot for no reason, and be forced to wait outside before entering the boys’ changing rooms.  
Just until the blush subsided, the heat stopped coiling in his lower belly, and any noticeable… _things…_ were gone.  
It was all incredibly embarrassing, and he tried to tell himself it was just the image of any girl changing that got him going, but that wasn’t it.

He didn’t notice anyone but her, and what was worse – the _noticing_ didn’t stop at practice.

Walking home, her slightly damp hair would start to curl above her shoulders, the occasional ringlet forming in the mass of burnt amber and orange. She would be ceaselessly talking as usual-even when eating- and she had a way of speaking through a half-smile, a wry expression that could turn into a laugh and back again. When eating, she made small sounds of satisfaction, and she always ended up with sauce around her mouth, until someone pointed it out. Then she would blush slightly, and the half-smile would turn into a giggle, as she wiped carelessly at her mouth with her sleeve.

Her school uniform was always stained like that – sometimes he wondered if she owned a washing machine at all- and her casual clothes were just as bad. Loose patterned t-shirts with egg stains from breakfast, and colourful shorts that clashed magnificently with her brightly coloured shoes. She looked like a kid’s finger painting, _all the time_.

Yet now he could deny it no longer.

Hinata was very, very cute.

He’d seen her actually looking like a girl once, in a denim skirt and blouse, with neat green barettes in her wild curly hair. She was babbling on after practice about being late for her grandmother’s birthday, hurriedly smoothing down her rapidly forming ringlets and straightening her blouse, and he’d wanted to grab her and kiss her right there and then.

He could pretend it was platonic up to that point. She was cute in the same way that kittens were cute. She was the mascot of the team, that was all, and the protectiveness he felt towards her was shared by everyone.

But staring at her thin cherry lips, wanting to press them against his and taste her breath on his tongue?

Not platonic. Nope.  
Not at all.

 

x

 

Kageyama Tobio was driving her _crazy._

She wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong- possibly he was still grumpy from when she’d served into the back of his head- but all she knew was that he was glaring at her.

_Constantly._

It was really beginning to throw her off. She’d be just laughing innocently at one of Tanaka’s so-bad-they’re-good jokes, and suddenly she’d catch his eye in the background. Scowling at her over Tanaka’s shoulder. She’d flinch, and he’d mutter _‘dumbass_ ’ and walk off, and she would be left wondering what the hell she’d done wrong.  
Laughing too loudly? Encouraging Tanaka? Did he think they were laughing at him?

 

She didn’t know.

The emotional turbulence of Kageyama Tobio was starting to keep her awake at night, worrying, and she would turn up for practice yawning and rumpling her hair even further. Of course, that would only bring on another round of ‘I _diot! You’re no use to me if you’re a zombie!’_ , and more scowling.

She’d started riding faster through the mountains in the hope that the whipping wind would wake her up a bit, and she’d come off once or twice – bike skidding to the edge of the road and knees stinging like crazy as gravel collected in the deep grazes. He’d yelled at her even more that day, though, for “jeopardising their quick strike by almost breaking her leg”.

It seemed Hinata could do no right.

 

Eventually, sick of it all, she turned to the only person capable of surmounting the Herculean task of understanding Kageyama Tobio.

 

 _Kenma?_  
she wrote, lying under her blankets so Natsu wouldn’t wake up and fuss over the blue light streaming from her phone screen.

The reply was almost instantaneous. _Shouyou?_

 _Do u knw y Kageyaama h8s me so mch? y is he sch an asshle 2 me?_  
  
There was a pause this time, and she wasn’t sure if Kenma was thinking about the question or struggling to interpret her awful txtspeak. Then, he replied, and she almost dropped her phone at the buzzing.  
_I thought he was like that to everyone, though?_  
She snickered, and winced at the sound of Natsu rustling her covers. Covering her mouth, she replied.  
_Bt he glares @ me all da tym?_

The pause was shorter this time.  
_Glares, or stares?_

Frowning, she typed back, _y wud he stare @ me?_

_Why do guys usually stare at girls, Shouyou?_

Feeling like an idiot, she turned the screen off and thought about it. Kenma was the smartest guy she knew – except maybe Tsukishima – so he couldn’t be insinuating what she thought he was insinuating.  
Right?

Apparently, Kenma could read minds, for he confirmed her fears in his next text.

_Going to sleep now. Early practice tomorrow. Also yes I did mean he likes you._

The air was suddenly way too hot, under her thick volleyball-patterned duvet, and she popped her head out from under the covers. Gasping a little, she lay there, dizzily thinking it over.  
Kageyama? Liking her?  
The idea of their resident grumpy setter liking anyone was laughable – much less the girl he seemed to hate so much. Maybe Kenma wasn’t as smart as she thought.

Snorting at the idea, she rolled over, and tried to sleep.

 

x

 

But the next day, he was still glaring at her, and she was still tiptoeing around him like he was a time bomb waiting to explode and murder her with a volleyball.

They’d pass in the hall, shunted from side to side by gaggles of texting students, and he’d scowl. She’d be crouched by the vending machine, digging through her bag for change, and he’d be angrily slurping his milk box in her direction. Begging Noya to teach her the Rolling Thunder, she looked up, and there he was. Face like a lemon, and every muscle in his body clenched as if her very existence was an insult to his being.

She could stand it no longer.  
There was no way Kenma was right – Hinata was more likely to swoon than glare if she liked somebody, and even _Kageyama_ should be the same- but this was just getting ridiculous.

“Yo, Kageyama!” she blurted at the end of practice, two weeks into the scowling fest, and he turned from picking up his black sports bag, customary frown worn high on his face.  
She chickened out.  
“Uh.. are those your school shoes?” She pointed to a pair of black raggedy slip-ons lying haphazardly by the wall. His frown was now tinged with a hint of confusion.  
“What? Aren’t they yours?” he pointed out, and she wanted to slap herself in the face. Of course he was right, but it was the first excuse she thought of.  
It was also the stupidest.

The setter seemed to agree, for he muttered “ _dumbass_ ” as he slung his bag over his shoulder, moving to follow the others into the male changing rooms.

“Wait!”

The panicked word forced its way out of her mouth, and she cringed as he looked back. He had an intensely piercing gaze, and it was difficult to hold, but she tried her best.

“What?”

_What, indeed._

She had no idea how to begin, so she just went for it.

“Why do you always glare at me like that?”

To her shock, Kageyama looked genuinely surprised at the question.  
“I…don’t?” he managed eventually, in a very taken-aback tone of voice.  
“You do,” she countered, sticking to her guns even though her stomach was churning like soup in a blender. “All the time. And I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, so can you just… tell me? Yell at me or something? Because otherwise I second guess everything I do, and then I make even _more_ mistakes, like falling off my bike, and then you just tell me off and I have no idea what else to try to make you not look at me like that-“

“Idiot, I only glare at you if you’re being stupid.” he said.  
“So I’m stupid all the time?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

A little hurt, she dropped her face and muttered to her trainers. “Well, I suppose it makes more sense than what Kenma said. Although frankly I’m not sure which I prefer.”

Suddenly, Kageyama was looking at her with a slightly shocked expression, and she blanched as she realised he had heard.

“What did Pudding-kun say?” Kageyama demanded. He took a further step towards her, towering above her head. His whole body radiated anxiousness. “What did he tell you?”

“I-“ she dropped her face even further, attempting to hide behind the locks falling over her forehead and wishing her hair behaved enough to allow for a fringe.

“…He said that you like me,” she continued, in a whisper. “As in that way.”

There was total silence for a solid ten-second period, during which she wanted to dash her head against a wall. He was staring at her with an expression of pure horror in his dark blue eyes, mouth hanging a little wide and eyebrows drawn together high on his face. This was mortifying. No matter how obviously false Kenma’s guess was, talking about feelings with Karasuno’s resident jerk setter was not high on her most-wanted list.

 

Yet eventually, he snorted, so loudly that it echoed around the gym.  
“Me? Liking you? I thought Kenma was supposed to be smart?”

She chuckled, nervously. “Y-yeah, it’s pretty silly, ri-“

“Silly? It’s _ridiculous_ ,” he barked, cutting her off, and she stopped in place as he continued. “Why would _I_ ever like a girl like _you?_ ”

She bit her lip. This was beginning to sound rather insulting, and her stomach was getting a weird hollow feeling inside. “I know I’m not really your type-“

“Not my type? Try not my _age bracket_! Dating you would be like dating an elementary schooler. I mean, you act like a child, talk like a child, look like a child. You’re as annoying as a child too, and I don’t see who would date that.”

The last sentence seemed to echo in her brain, ringing through her ears again and again, and all of a sudden she felt like crying. It was like the world was suspended, and everything he’d just said to her was doing loops around her mind, hitting her every time.

_Dating you would be like dating an elementary schooler_   
_Who would date that?_

He was looking at her with a triumphant expression, as if extremely satisfied with himself, but it slid off his face as her lips quivered.

“Y-yeah,” she eventually managed. “You’re right. Kenma’s an idiot.”  
She attempted to chuckle, but it came out as more of a sob, and Kageyama was now looking a little appalled at how shockingly he’d overcompensated.

“Wait, Hinata, I didn’t-“

“No, you’re right.” She laughed, and the sound was a little lighter this time. She was getting better at forcing herself. “Nobody wants to date someone who could be their kid sister, right?”

“No, that’s not what I said-“

“Oh, but it _is_.” She was backing away now, making a slow break for the girls’ changing rooms, and he was taking one involuntary step forward with every backstep of hers. “I get it now. You really just glare at me because I’m the kid on the team of capable adults. Holding you back. Hahaha.”

He was still staring at her, face frozen in horror, and she could feel herself beginning to fall apart.

She grinned, heart breaking, and added a “nice to be finally on the same page” as she turned and dashed to the safety of the changing rooms, where he couldn’t follow and she could finally slide against the wall and cry.


	11. You Caused It

There is something soul-crushing about being told you’re unlovable.

 

The scene played in her head, start to finish, over and over. A flickering filmstrip of moving mouths, the memories of what was said, hit and kept on hitting her as she lay curled on her mattress. Her pillow was damp beneath her head, but the ability to care had deserted her somewhere between crying in the changing rooms and arriving home to her empty house. The tears filled and emptied, rising in her vision and trickling down her face, but she couldn’t feel them anymore. She just felt the need to cry.

And so, lying there with fists bunched in her duvet and chest-of-draws shunted against her bedroom door, she let it go.

It shouldn’t bother her so much what that jerk said. Kageyama had proven himself time and again to be a thinks-after-he-speaks (if at all) kind of guy, and anyway, it was entirely possible that he panicked and made it all up on the spot. Maybe he was simply driven to insult her by the need to overcompensate.

Somehow, though, she doubted it. Something about the emphatic way he professed his revulsion to dating her made it difficult to believe he harboured anything more than resentment. If there was anything more that he felt, bunched inside, it was hidden so far down that it may as well not be there at all.

She tried not to think about it.

_But the thing is, the thoughts we don’t want in our heads are the ones that stay the longest._

_Get out of my head, Kageyama. Get out of my life._

 

x

“Shouyou?”

She barely raised her head as her mother attempted to push the door open.  
“Go away.”

“Shouyou, what the-“  
Her mother pushed harder on the door, and suddenly the chest of drawers fell over with a crash, and her mother’s dark brown eyes were peering through the doorway.

_Stupid op-shop furniture. Can’t even hold a door shut._

Attempting to sit up, she rubbed her eyes, and the gesture apparently triggered Mrs Hinata’s tiger-mum instincts.  
She rushed in over the fallen furniture, hovering over Hinata’s prone form, and reached out to touch her forehead.  
“Honey, what happened? Are you sick?”

Hinata shook her head, weakly, and the motion loosened tears from her eyes, drops falling to her oversized sweater and dotting dark blue on the fabric. Her mother looked more concerned than before.

“Shouyou,” Mrs Hinata said, sitting gently on the bed next to her. Her small frame barely made a dent in the mattress. “what’s wrong?”

Hinata couldn’t answer, because if she opened her mouth then she would start sobbing uncontrollably, and her mother always cried when she did. She couldn’t handle that right now.

Yet it seemed her mother’s maternal instincts granted her telepathy.

“Is it a boy?” her mother said, softly, and Hinata nodded, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.  
”Did he hurt you?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. "More than I thought he could."

Mrs Hinata was very quiet.

Her hands were gently rubbing Hinata’s feet through the covers, like she did when her daughter was ten and home with a broken arm, or five and facing elementary school, or three and sick with chicken pox. It was a gesture reserved for when Hinata was truly  upset, and she closed her eyes, giving in to the soothing motion and letting herself curl against her mother. It was silent in the room, save for her sniffling, and she could hear Natsu scratching away with crayons in the kitchen.

Eventually, Mrs Hinata sighed.

“Shouyou, there isn’t a person in this world that hasn’t been hurt by somebody else. We all hurt each other, on purpose or by accident, and we all feel the pain of someone else’s words once in our lives. You can teach your children how to talk, but you can never teach them how it feels to hear their words. That’s something everyone learns on their own. Maybe this boy hasn’t learnt it yet.

So you know what you have to do?”

Hinata looked up at her, big teary eyes waiting for the answer.

“You have to tell him.”

x

 

Kageyama was not overly surprised when Hinata asked for a separate practice slot. Their partnership had hit a rough spot, due to her inability to even look at him anymore, which in turn was probably caused by his inability to be anything but a massive asshole towards her. The amount of times he’d hurt Hinata Shouyou was creeping towards double digits, and it had to stop. He knew that.

And yet, the panic he’d felt when she’d voiced Kenma’s startlingly accurate guess threatened to consume him every time he tried.

Telling her the truth would be horrific. Lying to her was even worse.

So what did he have left?

 

The answer was forced out of him the next day, when Hinata walked right up to him after practice and punched him on the side of the arm.

 

“Ouch!” he yelped, jumping away from her surprisingly hard fist and rubbing the bruised area with a highly confused expression. “What the f-“

“You’re a jerk to me all the time, and you need to quit it!”

_What???_

Completely taken by surprise, mouth hanging open, he waited for her to elaborate.

“You’re mean to me all the time,” she said, breathing heavily. “And it’s not like it makes you _special_ , because trust me when I say you’re not the only one who hates me for playing on this team! But I expect you to at least try to respect me enough to sustain a functioning partnership!”  
She stuttered over the words a little, and a tiny part of him wanted to laugh at the fact that she’d probably practiced this several times in the bathroom mirror, but the rest of him was feeling plenty guilty enough already. So he listened.  
“I know you think I’m stupid. Hell, maybe I am. But that’s no excuse to treat me like this! I don’t care if you’re in love with me, or in hate with me, or- I dunno, whatever the equivalent phrase is, it doesn’t matter- but you gotta stop being such a colossal DOUCHEWAGON!”

His mouth popped open again.

“A _what_?!”

  
“A douchewagon. That’s what you are.”  
She was pointing at him, finger shaking a little but eyes squinted in stable anger. Indignation was radiating throughout her entire body, and he wanted to kiss her again for the second time in so many hours, because this was the Hinata that he lov-

_Wait, what?_

_Since when did it change to the l- word?_

He was just puzzling this through as she continued, and had to forcibly shake his head to regain concentration.

“…and inter-highs start in two weeks, and you better sharpen up by then, because if we don’t use our quick strike in the competition because you’re too busy being mean to be then I’ll kill you, I swear to god, I’ll kill you and then resurrect you solely for the pleasure of killing you again because I-“

“-‘m sorry.”

“Hah?!”

The unintelligent phrase burbled out of her mouth, and she looked amazed as his eyebrows knit together in an expression of utter sincerity.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to deal with you being on the team, and you are kind of an idiot but you’re right, I should be more patient. I was rude to call you an idiot, and I went too far when I said I didn’t like you. I’m sorry.”  
He dropped his face a little, inclining his neck towards hers, and at first she looked a little offended but then he looked pleadingly into her eyes and he saw them soften into liquid brown again.

“Forgive me?” he murmured, hardly daring to move.

She was holding her breath, he could see it, and he hung out for an answer; then she let it out, slowly, in a quiet “okay.” Then, she added an even quieter "you're still a douchewagon though". Just to get the last word in.

But she kept looking at him, and he kept looking at her, and her toes were pressing into the floor as she raised her chin up slightly and he lowered his, and their faces were inches away and then centimetres away, her lips so close he could almost feel them phantom on his own and her gaze holding him frozen and waiting-

 

 

“Hinata-chan!!! Wha – Oh, my GOSH, I’m SO SORRY!”

The uneven female voice tore through the sexual tension with all the delicacy of a rock through a spider web.

Hinata and Kageyama turned in unison, lips still comically pursed, to see a group of her classmates all clustered at the door, mouths hanging agape at the scene before them.

 _For FUCK’s sake. Are you joking?!_ The setter thought, furiously, and judged by the stunned look on Hinata's face that she was probably thinking the same thing.

 

The girl who’d spoken, who Kageyama swore would die in her sleep that night if he had his way, was flicking back her long hair – dyed blonde like Kenma’s, but more platinum and poofier than his slick bob- and sashaying across the gym towards them.

“A- Ai! Hey, what are you-“

  
“We came to see if you wanted to come shopping with us-“ the girl cut Hinata’s stutterings off with a wave of her hand, imperiously, and Kageyama’s eyes narrowed- ”but when you said you were having practice, we didn’t think you mean this sort of practice!”  
“Private tutoring!” one of the other girls hissed behind one hand, and they all laughed.

Kageyama was exceedingly grateful that he didn’t have a tendency to blush, because Hinata was fast approaching the colour of a ripe tamarillo beside him, and it didn't look like much fun. He wanted to say that the situation wasn’t how it looked (even though he was pretty sure it was), but Hinata beat him to it.  
“It’s not like th-“ she began, but Ai was waving her hand again.  
“Come now, Hinata-chan. We knew there was a reason you joined the boy’s team. We were thinking maybe you were half-and-half, but this is even better! Your own team of boyfriends!”

“Hey,” snarled Kageyama, who hadn’t missed the half-and-half comment. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The girl completely ignored him, outlined eyes not moving from Hinata’s.  
“But now we know, Hinata-chan. What your motives really are.”

She grinned, but the teasing had left her voice, and the smile she gave Hinata was the waiting grin of a crocodile.  
A hunter’s smile.

Hinata’s chocolate eyes were wide before Ai’s narrowed green ones, and there were a solid few beats of total silence in the Karasuno gym. Kageyama was about to step in and tell this girl exactly where she could stick her half-and-half theories before she cracked another malevolent smile and turned away.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, Hinata-chan! And then you can tell us _everything_.”

Wiggling back over to her gaggle of friends and ushering them out the door, she threw Hinata one last look and they slammed the door, all laughing in time.

The crash echoed around the gym, silent and still once more.

_Fucking finally._

 

Kageyama’s head was spinning a little, and he opened his mouth to make up an excuse, but Hinata was already grabbing her stuff, mumbling goodbye, and dashing out the back entrance.

"Wait-" he blurted out, but she'd darted around the corner and he was alone.

He wanted to kick himself, for not kissing her when he had the chance- or, more prominently, for not slapping that girl for interrupting them. The moment had been right there, _she_ had been right there, and he had let her slip away. Or, to be more accurate, she had been scared off by a conniving group of her gossipy classmates.

Cursing himself, he collected his stuff, and as he looked towards the doorway another sentence ran around his head at the thought of Ai’s creepy grin.

 

_You aren’t the only one who hates me for being on the team._

 

He frowned. Something about the situation made him uneasy.

Still, he reflected as he slouched out of the gym and made his way home, given his track record lately with Hinata, maybe he should leave her alone to her business. She could handle it by herself.

 

 

And so began his third mistake.


	12. Rumours

They turned to stare at her as she entered the classroom the next morning, footsteps tapping slow and reluctant against the wooden floor.

She waited, frozen in place as they all turned to stare at her. Several pairs of eyes appraised her, but the sharpest gaze was that of the green-eyed Ai. Her eyebrows were raised almost to her hairline, but they dropped as Hinata looked over.

Their eyes met.

Then, in an instant, Ai had turned away and was chatting to her group again, all smiles and lipgloss and soft blonde ponytail flicking around the desk of the poor student behind her.

She was talking quietly, but using the careful gestures and pose of someone who knew they captured attention, and Hinata breathed a sigh of relief as everyone turned back to their leader.

Cautiously, she sat.  
Next to her, Miyako was adjusting her glasses nervously and putting down her book for the first time since Hinata had become her desk partner.

”Oi, Hinata-san,” she hissed, and Hinata sighed as she took her textbooks out of her faded duffel bag.  
“Miyako, I told you to just call me Shouyou-“  
“-why has Ai been telling everyone to corner you in the corridor after school?”

A shudder shot up Hinata’s spine, cold and painful, and every muscle in her body froze in sudden panic.

“What?” she rushed out in a shocked breath.

Miyako was now placing her mermaid bookmark cautiously amongst the pages of Hamlet, and Hinata knew it must be serious business. Her deskmate had never, ever attempted to hold a real conversation outside of classtime before; they both had the understanding that, as the few members of the classroom unadopted by Ai, they could stick together for convenience’s sake, but ultimately they belonged to different circles.  
Yet now Miyako was warning her, and Hinata knew it was bad news.

“What did you do?”  
Miyako was looking half-interested, half-terrified, and Hinata was shaking her head furiously in panicked denial, as if convincing Miyako would make the whole situation go away.  
“N-nothing!”  
Miyako’s thin, unkempt eyebrows were almost at her hairline. “Really? You haven’t been sleeping with the whole volleyball team?”

Hinata choked on her own saliva, frantically coughing out a “no” as several members of the classroom looked their way.  
“Miyako,” she wheezed out, as quietly as she could, taking out her drink bottle to try and calm her choking fit. “I’m _fifteen_. And what sort of girl do you think I am?”  
“I don’t know what sort of girl you are. No one does.”

There was a suspicious pause.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hinata asked, dubiously.  
“You don’t want to know-“  
“Yes. I do.”

As Suzuki-sensei tapped her way to the blackboard, a hush fell over the room, and Miyako closed her mouth with an _I-can’t-talk-about-it-now_ expression.

She wasn’t getting away that easily.

Hinata ripped out a page from her notebook, as quietly as she could, and wrote in her untidy script.

_Tell me, Miyako. Please._

She waited.

The reply came relatively fast, in her classmate’s flowing handwriting, as Suzuki-sensei adjusted her tortoiseshell glasses and wrote the lesson plan on the board.

_Well, first of all, I heard from Gina that you were actually born with both, um, things… and your parents decided to put you in the girl’s group at school but it could have gone either way. and that’s why you look like a girl but can play volleyball like a boy._

Hinata sucked in her breath, and Suzuki-sensei shot them a suspicious look as she wrote the page numbers underneath the plan.

_You know I’m a girl, right?!_

_Now I do._

Sighing at Miyako’s stunning honesty, she tried to calm down and write as stealthily as possible. Suzuki-sensei had a reputation for reading notes aloud in class, and Hinata had no desire to have the whole class listen to a debate over whether she had junk or not.

 _I’m a girl. I swear_. she wrote, finally.

 _A girl who sleeps with the whole volleyball team?_ Miyako scribbled back, writing still unfairly neat. _Or is it just that Kageyama guy?_

Hinata suddenly got the most amazing image of Kageyama and her in bed together, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree.

Miyako was now looking shocked, and reached for her pen again when Hinata snatched up the paper and crumpled it up. She stuck the paper in her bag, loudly and defiantly, and tried to control the heat in her cheeks.

“Hinata-san?” Suzuki-sensei called, not even looking over her shoulder as the chalk squeaked against the blackboard. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

“ _No_ ,” Hinata said emphatically, and threw Miyako a look to make it clear that she was answering more than one question.

“Then perhaps you would like to start us off? Second paragraph down?”

 

Hinata looked at her deskmate for help. Miyako had always possessed a stunning capacity to flawlessly answer any questions flung her way in class despite paying no attention to anything except the pages of her many novels. Catching the small girl’s beady black eyes, Hinata made a pleading expression. Miyako sighed.

Yet sure enough, she whispered “Geography, page twelve”, and took out her Shakespeare again, to be lost amongst the regicide and melodrama of Denmark once more.  
Suzuki-sensei looked over at then.  
“Well, Hinata-san?”

  
Hinata gratefully flipped open her textbook, and stood up on shaky legs, wishing she could join Miyako in her paper world.

 

x

Terror shot up her back at the ring of the lunch bell.  
Ai and her gang were lounging in the sunniest corner of the classroom, magazines spread and curlers clamped around auburn fringes, and Hinata peeked at them seventeen times before taking a chance and shooting out of the doorway as fast as her short legs could carry her.

Haring down the corridor, she darted out of the double doors and made a break for the vending machine. If she were lucky, she could grab something to eat, a juice box too, and run back before they noticed she was by herself-

A hand slammed against the vending machine beside her head, and she actually _screamed_ , throwing her purse across the courtyard. It sailed to an inglorious crash-landing on the grass, and her assailant watched it fly, turning back to her with a flummoxed expression on their handsome face.

“What the hell, Hinata?”

_Oh._

Kageyama was leaning against the vending machine, staring at her with a now-customary mix of confusion and annoyance on his sharp features.

She was almost sorry it wasn’t Ai. She had been planning on avoiding the grouchy setter ever since their encounter in the gym, and having him tower over her in his grumpily attractive manner was just the opposite of what she needed.  
Which was, to avoid the whole thing.

Maybe she should just move to Greenland.

“I wonder how much a plane ticket would cost,” she muttered, before realising that Kageyama was saying something. She tuned in, regretfully.

“…didn’t want to get involved again, but I wanted to make sure you were coming to practice, because those girls were crazy, I mean, all that half-and-half crap? What was _that_ about? I swear, Hinata, that Ai girl is insane if she thinks that you’re some kind of gender hybrid. I mean, at least a guy would have _muscles_. And be able to receive without knocking themselves out. But then, insinuating that we’re some kind of couple? What are they, nuts?’  
He stopped himself, possibly remembering the last time he had gone down that road, and leaned towards her.  
“They haven’t been spreading rumours, have they?”

In a flash, she remembered what Miyako had asked in class, and a heavy blush rose on her face.

“They don’t think we’re sleeping together! No!” she blurted, and Kageyama stepped back hurriedly.

 _Fuck_ , she thought, realising that he hadn’t actually _asked_ her that.

He was blinking rapidly at her suspiciously specific denial, and she was praying he would let it go, but then she was a little surprised to see his nose turning slightly pink.

Was Kageyama blushing?

The thought of him blushing actually made her blush even harder, until they were just standing there, pink in the face and coughing awkwardly.

“So, that’s a yes,” he managed eventually, and she nodded slowly. “Rumours about us, or rumours about you?”

“About the whole team, technically,” she murmured, and he looked shocked.

Cracking his knuckles, he stood away from the vending machine and looked at her with a lethal expression in his blue eyes. “If they’ve been talking shit about Sugawara and Daichi I’ll-“

“Everyone.” she said, cutting him off. “They think I’ve slept my way onto the team.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, several times, and it would almost be funny if she weren’t so utterly mortified.

”You didn’t, though,” he said slowly, and she blanched.  
“Yes, Kageyama, I KNOW THAT. And they do too! They’re just spreading rumours because…”  
“Because?” he prompted, and she shook her head rapidly from side to side.  
“I don’t know! Because it’s something different, I guess, and they don’t like that? Maybe they’re jealous.”  
Kageyama’s expression darkened a little.  
“Parents always say that,” he muttered, and she was going to inquire further when the bell rang and fear shot up her back at the thought of returning to class.

The courtyard slowly emptied, and still she didn’t move, until it was completely vacant save for the tiny girl and the lanky setter by the vending machine.

Frowning, Kageyama turned to walk away to his next class, but she grabbed his hand before he could move.  
“Wait!”

She felt desperation take over her whole body, and thus she didn’t even feel embarrassed about the way he was staring at her hand on his. The thought of being cornered in the corridor was still fresh in her mind.

”Can you walk me to class? Please?” she gabbled, and he looked completely confused.  
“I-“

“ _Please_ , Kageyama?” she begged.

He looked at her, searchingly, and she tried to look as calm as possible.  
Eventually, he nodded, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  
She was safe.

x

It was only back in her seat that she remembered her purse, still sitting forlornly on the grass by the courtyard.  
But going out to get it would mean being alone outside the classroom, and she couldn’t risk it-

She realised she was furiously biting her nails in her panic.

Sitting on her hands, she tried to relax, and calm herself down.  
_Don’t worry, Shouyou. It’s probably just a rumour. And even if they do want to talk, once you tell them that you fluked your way onto the team, they’ll leave you alone._

_It’ll be fine._

x

 

And in the end, it was. At least, temporarily.

The bell rang for the end of class, Hinata threw her books into her bag, and tore out of the classroom to the aforementioned corridor. She had her head down, hair hanging in front of her eyes, and so she almost ran headlong into the seniors waiting outside the classroom.

“Hinata?”

She looked up at the sound of Daichi’s voice.

“Hi!” she squeaked, a little hysterically, and a dizzying wave of relief made its way up her body as she realised she wasn’t alone. “What are you guys doing here?”

They traded glances.

“Kageyama texted Daichi and asked us to escort you to practice,” Sugawara said, hazel eyes appraising her worriedly. “Everything okay?”

“You’re not quitting, are you?” Asahi asked frantically, and she was touched by the concern in his voice.

“No, nothing like that, I just-“

She cut off as someone coughed behind her and she realised she was blocking a set of lockers.

“Sorry!” she said, embarrassed, and the girl rolled her eyes, shunting past Hinata and almost knocking her over with her kaleidoscope-patterned bag.

“A-anyway,” she smiled back at the seniors, who were still looking at her like she was going to run off at any moment. “I think Kageyama just wanted to make sure I wasn’t skipping out on practice. Gotta get the partnership ready for regionals, y’know?”

They didn’t look convinced, and she coughed.

“So! Let’s go, guys! What are we waiting for?”

Smiling determindly, she steamed off towards the Karasuno gym, and was relieved to hear them fall into step behind her and start alternately strategising for inter-high (Daichi and Sugawara) and worrying about upcoming chemistry assessments (Asahi).  
Halfway through, she realised her purse was probably still sitting by the vending machine, and paused.

_Ai and her gang never hang around after school. It should be safe. That’s my whole week’s pork bun money in there._

“Forgot something! I’ll see you guys inside!” she said, and dashed towards the courtyard, praying it was still there.

Fighting the traffic jam of students pushing their way in the opposite direction was difficult, though, and she was patiently waiting to one side when she heard it-

Kaleidoscope girl was slouching past, holding hands with her boyfriend, and her voice was just barely audible.

“…flunked my biology test, and then I was late getting out because that stupid _volleywhore_ girl was taking up all the corridor with her flirting, and I-“

Then the girl disappeared behind a group of male students, all talking incessantly about hot dogs and video games, and Hinata was left open-mouthed at the edge of the flow of students.

There was no way the girl had said what Hinata thought she’d said. No way. But if she did...

Volleywhore? She had a _nickname_ now?

What had started out as a comical misunderstanding was fast appearing to be a major problem. She couldn’t believe this was happening, that Ai’s rumour had spread throughout the class in such a short space of time-

Then all the blood drained from her face as she realised something.

That girl was wearing a senior uniform.  
Which meant it wasn’t just Ai’s _group_ that heard the rumour. It wasn’t just Hinata’s _class_ that thought she was sleeping around.

It was the entire _school_.


	13. That's What We Do

_Volleywhore._

The word was everywhere, and Hinata couldn’t stop hearing it. When she walked through the halls, in class under people’s breath, as she unlocked her bike and made off for home.  
She knew she was probably being paranoid, and hearing it when it wasn’t said (except with Ai’s group, who did say it as she walked past), but she couldn’t help it. It hung over her head, all the time, in her thoughts.

Now she knew why it was called a rumour mill.

It was grinding her down, down into dust, and she was helpless in its churning cogs.

One day, she actually borrowed Natsu’s mp3 player (filled as it was with sugarsweet pop and theme tunes) to try and drown it out, but she found herself staring at everyone’s mouths anyway, trying to read the dreaded word on their lips. She couldn't escape the feeling of paranoia that haunted her.

Helplessness. It was a completely unfamiliar situation for the eternally indomitable Hinata Shouyou, and she hated it.

 

The only saving grace was one Kageyama Tobio, knight in grouchy armour.

 

She didn’t think he knew (something told her Ai would probably be in hospital if he did), but he wasn’t quite stupid enough not to notice that something was up with her. She’d be walking in the halls, and he would follow at a distance. Eating lunch by the courtyard (in her usual hiding spot, alone), he’d suddenly appear and sit without invitation, munching his sandwiches and slurping his milk without fail.

Then, he started throwing out conversation starters here and there, and all of a sudden they were eating lunch together.

He wasn’t a bad guy, she was surprised to learn. Despite the fact that he was firmly convinced that GX (an abomination, in her eyes) was the best installment of Yu-Gi-Oh, and didn’t know where Scotland was (although she was the one to initially ask), their conversations could last the whole lunch break and beyond. Strategising for the fast-approaching Inter-high, now just over a week away, or just bickering about stupid stuff until they were both yelling at each other, lunch forgotten. Suddenly she was continuing their arguments in class, and at home, and once even on her bike, although she’d nearly crashed into a fence and he’d flatly refused to reply anymore until he knew she was safe at home.

It was odd. She’d expected him to avoid her to quell any dating rumours. It's certainly what the King of the Court would have done.

But it seemed like her moment of frailty, in begging him to walk her back to class a few days ago, was desperate enough to show him that she needed him right now.

She needed a _someone_ , and Kageyama Tobio was turning out to be that someone.

Then, three days later, he was forcibly sent to the nurse’s office after projectile-vomiting in class (which he later blamed on eating her two-day old beef sourdough sandwich, forgotten in her locker until he didn’t bring lunch and begged her for it), and she panicked as she realised she was going to have to spend the day alone.

Apparently she wasn’t the only one to realise.

When she got to her usual lunch spot, Ai was there, along with five of her gang.

Hinata slowed to a complete stop, knots of nervousness twisting and tying in her stomach.  
“Hey, Shou-chan!” Ai called, waving exaggeratedly, and her friends laughed. Hinata managed a pained grimace.  
“Hi.”  
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Ai continued, giggling, and Hinata tried to deny it, but it was clear that they weren’t listening.  
“Or should I say ...  _boyfriends_?”

Suddenly she was standing, towering over Hinata just like Kageyama used to do. Only this time, it felt dangerous and not vaguely romantic.

Hinata swallowed.

  
“I’m not sleeping with them,” she managed in a shaky voice, and Ai snorted.  
“ _Bullshit_ , Hinata. Bullshit. We know that’s how you got in the team. That’s the only way, right? No one ever plays for a boys’ team unless they’re a boy or sleeping their way into it.”  
She paused, gaze dropping to Hinata’s skirt, and Hinata didn’t like the new smile one bit.  
“You’re not a boy, right, Shou-chan?”  
Hinata shook her head. The other girls snickered, with derision plain in their voices.  
“Are you sure about that? I think we need proof, right, girls? We don’t want to be sharing our bathroom with a transvestite slut.”

All of a sudden they were all a lot closer than before, and Ai was reaching to grab Hinata’s skirt, but then her reflexes kicked in, just like in volleyball, and she was dodging and running away. She could hear them laughing as she dashed around the corner and off to her bike. 

Not looking back, she pedalled wildly out of the school gates and up the road, not realising until she got there that she was fleeing for the safety of her house.

The tears started streaming as she rode home, whipping down her cheeks and immediately dashed away by the wind.

_Volleywhore._

x

 

“Shou?”

Natsu was poking at the immobile lump in her sister’s bed, frowning at the alarm clock.  
“Shou-chan, it’s time to get up, and Mama-“  
“Don’t call me that.”

The voice was harsh from under the blankets, and Natsu stepped back a bit, blinking.  
“Shou, Mama said you’re gonna be late and she sent me to get you up and now you’re being _mean_.”

“I’m not going to be late. I’m not going to school.”

Natsu looked amazed, as if the idea of not going to school hadn’t existed until that very moment, and her sister was inventing it on the spot.

“Why not? You have to go to school. I have to! It’s not fair if you don’t!”

“Shut up, Natsu.”

Taking a breath, the tiny girl fluttered her long eyelashes in a shocked way, and opened her mouth to yell for her mother, when there was an _mmpf_ sound and Hinata popped her head out reluctantly.  
“Sorry, Natsu.” She tried to manage a smile through the panic inhabiting her entire body, and Natsu looked suspicious. “I just don’t feel well.”  
“Are you sick? Are you going to throw up in our room?”  
“Maybe.”

“Shou! Noooooooo!!! MAMA, SHOU’S THROWING UP IN OUR ROOM AND IT’S GOING TO SMELL ALL CHUNKY!!!!”

Hinata winced as her mother came haring into the room.  
“She’s wha- Natsu! Don’t tell fibs like that!”  
“But she _said_ she was,” Natsu wailed, and her mother gave her a little push towards the door.  
”Go put on your shoes, honey. I’ll talk to her.”

Natsu looked at her sister jealously, and Hinata felt a sudden rush of affection for the little girl pouting at her from across the room. She may be a pest, but Natsu would never in a million years be as deliberately mean as the girls at school.

“I love you, little sister!” she blurted, and Natsu looked surprised.  
There was a pause.  
“I love you too.." she muttered.

Hinata waited.

"…more than rainbows,” Natsu finished grumpily, but gave her a small smile as she stomped out of the room. ‘But I won’t if you throw up near my bed!”

Their mother laughed, but her expression fell serious as Natsu’s footsteps disappeared off down the narrow hall. She stood near her daughter's bed.

“Honey, is it a boy again?”

“No,” Hinata said, and prepared herself for the lie. “I’m just not feeling well.”

Mrs Hinata knew her daughter well. “But there’s practice today, and Inter-Highs is just next week. Are you sure you can miss it?” she tried, testing, but Hinata was nodding.  
“I really don’t think I should go today. I’m just going to stay here and sleep.”

Mrs Hinata paused, but the lie had passed, and she eventually moved to leave the room.  
“All right. Will you be okay here by yourself?”  
“I’ll be fine.”

The sentence reverberated around her head as her mother herded Natsu out the door, and  she heard their tiny car grumble to a reluctant start as they left.

It was all quiet in the Hinata house.

Finally, softly, she allowed herself to cry.

x

_Dumbass, why aren’t you at school? You better be in hospital because that’s the only excuse._

Five seconds later.

_I hope you’re not though._

Two seconds later.

_The team hopes it, I mean._

One second later.

_Dumbass._

 

Listlessly, she opened each message and read it, but they weren’t making her feel any better today.

She couldn’t tell Kageyama why she was afraid to go to school. And the secret stood between them, like a brick wall blocking their budding friendship.

So she didn’t reply.

 

x

 

Kageyama frowned as his phone kept silent. He’d been virtually inundating Hinata with messages all day, but the dumbass wasn’t replying, and now he was starting to worry that she really _was_ in hospital. Or worse, dead.

He thought about it all through practice, actually keeping his phone in his pocket so Hinata could text him at any moment, but after a particularly exerting leap it was flung out and smashed on the court.

He winced, abandoning the game and dashing over to where it lay in three pieces on the ground.  
Everyone looked at him, amazed.

“Kageyama? Why do you have your phone on you?’  
“ _I didn’t even know he knew what texting was_!”  
“Shut up, Tanaka! Kageyama, are you waiting for someone to call you?”  
“Is it a girl?”  
“Is it a _boy_?’  
“SHUT UP, TANAKA!”

He ignored them, frantically shoving the battery back into its compartment, and turned the little phone on with baited breath.

The screen lit up.

 _God bless you, Nokia_ , he thought, but put it safely on his bag.

On the loudest possible setting.

Just in case she called.

 _What’s up with you, dumbass Hinata_? he thought, and snuck glances at it for the rest of practice, to no avail.

Wherever Hinata was, she couldn't or wouldn't talk to him, and the thought unsettled him more than he'd care to admit.

Strange as it was, he missed her.

 

x

 

Rachel McAdams ripped open the door of her car and threw Ryan Gosling a look that would fell a battle-hardened soldier.

“Stay with you? What for?!”

“ _BECAUSE YOU LOVE HIM, DUMBASS_!” Daichi roared at the television from under his black-and-orange quilt, as the rest of The Notebook’s cringe-inducing dialogue was lost amongst his heckling. Curled up with a bowl of his favourite muesli, he sighed in satisfaction as the actors on the screen in front of him took belligerent sexual tension to its highest level.  
“I love this movie,” he muttered, and was about to reach for his spoon when the phone rang.

_Dang it._

Shooting up, and nearly upturning his bowl as he went, he lurched for the remote and hit “pause”.  
He grabbed his mobile, hoping it was Suga, who knew and (almost) never made fun of the captain’s unusual taste in movies.  
It wasn’t.

“Hello?” he said into the phone, cautiously, and went furiously red at the female voice that responded.

“Hi, Daichi? It’s Michimiya Yui here, from school, you know the girl who used to play in the volleyball team? Short hair and, um, eyes- I-I mean brown eyes! Hahaha, everyone has eyes, that was stupid… Anyway!”  
He was glad she couldn’t see the smile spreading broadly across his face at the adorable rambling.  
”I know who you are, Yui. What’s up?”  
She sighed into the phone, and immediately apologised as the sound manifested as a painful crackling through the speaker.

“Um, it’s about Hinata.”

Daichi narrowed his eyes, moving to sit down and landing on the remote as he went.  
“What about Hinata? She wasn’t at practice today, is everything oka-“

“ _WELL THAT’S WHAT WE DO_! WE FIGHT! YOU TELL ME WHEN I’M BEING AN ARROGANT SON OF A BITCH AND I TELL YOU-“

With a jolt of horror, he realised that he’d sat on the play button, and Ryan Gosling was now defending his love at full volume as Yui was still on the phone. Desperately, he lurched for the television and actually unplugged it from the wall.

”Damnit!” he yelped.  
In his ear, Yui was confusedly asking what happened.  
“Daichi? You there?”

Sitting on the floor with the plug in his hand, Daichi cursed silently.  
“Yup, I’m here. What’s up with Hinata?”  
“Daichi, was that dialogue?”

“No it wasn’t, and what’s up with Hinata?”

“ _Daichi, are you watching the Notebook_?!”

“NO! WHAT’S UP WITH HINATA, YUI?”

He heard her giggle once and then fall serious.  
“Well, my friend Koharu said that her friend Akari heard from her classmate Hiyori that people have been saying that Hinata is a, um….”  
“That Hinata is a what?”

She swallowed audibly. “I think the exact word they used was _volleywhore_.”

Daichi went very still.

“What.”

x

“And she hasn’t told anyone?!” Suga said, amazed, as Daichi explained the predicament to him over the phone later that evening (after a prolonged and rather embarrassing interrogation about his viewing habits from Yui).  
“Nope. No one had a clue. I don’t think she knew until that Ai girl started whispering it in class.”  
“Oh _no_.” Suga sounded horrified at the whole thing, and Daichi almost smiled at the tender sympathy in his friend’s voice. “Is that as far as it’s gone so far?’

“Koushi, exactly how much further can it spread? The whole damn prefecture?”  
‘No,” Suga said, grimly. “I meant have they started getting physical yet?”  
Daichi snorted. “They wouldn’t do that.”

There was a silence, and he added a dubious “would they?” into the speaker.

“Daichi, my cousin used to get bullied all the time.”  
Suga had a bitter tone to his voice, and the captain had a feeling that this wasn’t an oft-shared story. He kept silent, not wanting to interrupt, because he could feel that Suga would say this only to him, and only once.

“She was too scared to tell anyone, until they started shoving her around in the bathroom, and my aunt saw the bruises. She didn’t do anything about it until my cousin came home with a broken nose.”

“Shit,” Daichi breathed into the phone, horrified. “Was she okay?”  
“She moved schools, and it stopped, but I just couldn’t believe anyone would hurt her like that.” Suga sounded upset, and Daichi wished he could comfort him somehow, but he kept silent. “She was Hinata’s size, and neither of them would ever do anything to anyone. Neither of them deserve the shit they’ve gotten. People tend to believe that girls get insulted and boys get punched, but the truth is that either of them can happen to anybody. Today, it’s rumours. Tomorrow, it could be violence.”

They both fell silent.

“Daichi… What should we do?” Suga asked. There was a peculiar and unfamiliar note to his voice, which Daichi suddenly identified as matching his own. 

It was fear. 

“I don’t know, Koushi.”

The captain leaned back, phone flush against his ear, and closed his eyes.

"I really don't."


	14. Wildcats and Crows

“Before I tell you why we’re here, you have to promise not to tell Kageyama.”

The group raggedly assembled in the Karasuno gym nodded as one. Everybody was the kind of Saturday-morning sleepy that would cling on for the forthcoming week, and Daichi felt a little bad about calling them all here at 8am, but he had to get around everyone’s jobs somehow. For this to work, he needed the whole team assembled.

To his immense relief, everyone had responded to his enigmatic text within a half hour (except Tsukishima, who apparently had only agreed to it after Yamaguchi called him six times in two minutes). It was time to share.

“Wait,” Noya said, sounding a little lost. “Why can’t we tell Kageyama this?”

Daichi coughed. He looked at Suga.

  
“Because he’ll probably rip their heads from their shoulders if he knows,” Suga said without preamble, and Asahi almost gagged at the imagery.

  
“Who’s heads?” Tanaka demanded, obviously annoyed at the delay. Ennoshita echoed him. They both had the irrationally angry expressions of people who do not appreciate waking up any earlier than twelve on a weekend.

“Hinata’s bullies,” Daichi said sharply.

There was a collective intake of breath around the group.

Kiyoko actually had her hand over her mouth.

Eventually, Tsukishima broke the silence. “Her _what_?”  
“Hinata’s being bullied?”  
“Who would bully _Hinata_?”  
“I’ll kick their asses!”  
“I’ll help you, Noya-san!”  
“Thank you, Tanaka-san!”

 _“Nobody is kicking anyone’s asses_ ,” Suga said firmly, and Tanaka pounded his fist against his palm, looking genuinely furious.  
Yamaguchi cleared his throat, and everyone looked at him. He reddened beneath his freckles, but continued.

“We could set Tsukki on them. When I was bullied he-“  
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”  
“Sorry, Tsukki!”

  
The blonde adjusted his glasses and sighed. “Shouldn’t we get administration involved, or something? Get her to a counsellor and get her intimidators suspended? The usual?”  
“We thought of that,” Suga said, unhappily. “But Michimiya-san said staff had already been notified. They haven’t done anything about it thus far.”  
“And Hinata?” Ennoshita asked, still looking a little perplexed. “She hasn’t come forward?”  
Daichi looked at him. “Would you?”

There was a pause, and everyone shook their heads.

“That leaves us one choice,” Suga said, and Daichi envied the strength in his clear voice. “Are you ready to hear it?”

 

x

Hinata couldn’t believe her mother was forcing her to go to school that Monday.  
Sure, it was the week of Inter-High, and usually she’d be bouncing off the walls by now, but the truth was that she just couldn’t find the energy.

She just felt so alone.

Kageyama had kept texting her, all of Thursday and Friday and over the weekend too, but he was soon joined by a host of unknown numbers, whose messages were far less pleasant. Hinata wasn’t sure how Ai had gotten her number, and she hoped they hadn’t threatened Miyako into giving it to them, but she stopped wondering after the twelfth vicious text lit up her screen like wildfire.

Eventually, deciding that no amount of worried texts from Kageyama were worth having to read any more awful allegations, she took out her battery and left her phone in her sock drawer.

She didn’t check her Facebook.  
(She didn’t want to know what might be found on her wall.)

Thus, she had managed to avoid the situation for the whole of Sunday, sleeping in and listlessly watching cartoons with Natsu, but Monday morning rolled around all too quickly and then her mother was virtually forcing her out the door.

”But Mum! I can’t go to school!” she almost begged, desperation choking her throat, and her mother paused.  
“Why? Do you have a good reason?’

She couldn’t answer. The truth was that she _did_ , but something was stopping her from telling her mother exactly what was going on. It was just so shameful. So humiliating, and hurtful, that it made Hinata sick just thinking about it.  
She couldn’t tell her mother, and it killed her a little. So she allowed herself to be frogmarched down the straggely garden path to where her bike stood waiting, knots of nervousness still writhing in her belly.

 

But then she arrived at the gates, pedalling as slowly as humanly possible but still twenty minutes early, and Kageyama rushed at her so fast she almost fell off her bike with surprise.  
“Kageya-“

  
“DUMBASS!" He roared in her face. "You made me stay up worrying about you when this Friday is the most important day of all time! Where the hell were you all weekend?! I texted you the whole damn time, I sent you e-mails, I called your house-“  
“That was _you?_ ” she said, shocked. “I was scared it was-“  
She broke off as Kageyama’s face changed to angry surprise.  
“You thought it was _who_?”

“N-never mind.”

As the students flowed in around them, she clutched her bike handles a little tighter with unease. Nobody was looking at her, it was okay, it was-  
Then she saw Ai’s boyfriend Kyou, winking at her from behind Kageyama with a leering expression on his thin face, and she wanted to be sick.  
It wasn’t okay.  
She was stupid to think it would be.

“Hinata? Oi, are you alright?”  
Kageyama was suddenly taking up the whole of her vision, dark blue eyes narrowed in an expression of worry. His hands reached up almost of their own accord to rest on her shoulders, and she almost flinched, but he was just gently gripping them as if afraid she was going to run away otherwise.  
Her lip trembled.  
“Not really,” she whispered in a hollow voice, and the world was falling to a slow halt around her as more of Ai’s friends started pointing at her and whispering in her peripheral vision. “Kageyama-“

Suddenly, she was yanked forward and her mouth was muffled by polyester fabric, scratchy and smelling like boy, and she almost jumped away before she felt long arms settle around her and hold her in place.  
Shocked, she froze, and felt one hand lift up and cautiously pat her head, trying to comfort her.

She couldn’t compute what was happening

\- until she did.

Was she being… hugged?

It was a little awkward actually, and she wasn’t sure what was possessing him to do this because they hadn’t so much as high-fived before, but nevertheless he was holding her tight and the world shrunk down to just the two of them. A feeling of sanctuary radiated from Kageyama's embrace, of unconditional protection and safety. She felt the knots in her stomach begin to untie, and as the pressure released she felt tears fill her eyes.  
But then they tied tighter and tighter as she realised how it would look to Ai and her friends.

“ _No_!” she said, finally wriggling away, and Kageyama looked shocked and hurt.  
“What? What did I do?”  
“It’s not you,” she said, glancing around and catching the smirks on Kyou and Masaru’s faces at the apparent confirmation of their relationship. “It’s just everyone will see and think-“  
“Think _what_?” Kageyama sounded pissed off, and she couldn’t blame him. “Think that we’re dating? Is it really such a big deal if they do?”

She felt like something had hit her across the face. “What?"  


I don’t care if they think we’re dating.”  
“That…” her head felt foggy, and it was all too much. “That’s not the problem.”  
“The problem is that we’re not? That they’ll think I’m in love with you? _So what if I am_?” he barked.

She couldn’t think, everyone was looking at them now, they were going to be interrogating her about this all break, this was all too much-

The knot tightened until it snapped.

“ _Just leave me alone_!” she cried, suddenly, and threw her bike to the ground. “I just wanted to play volleyball! I just wanted to show everyone what I could do! I didn’t ask to get rumours spread about me, and I didn’t ask to get all of this attention, and I have never and will never sleep with anyone in the team! I am not a volleywhore! Why doesn’t anyone get that? Why can’t they just accept that I want to play? Why can’t everyone just LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE-“

“Hinata-san!”

Suzuki-sensei was storming towards them, and Kageyama was staring at her with a stunned expression on his face. She didn’t care.

  
“Pick up your bicycle and cease this high-volume swearing in front of the Karasuno gates! Immediately! I will be speaking to you after class, and-“  
Hinata silently picked up her bike, and wheeled it away to the bike shed whilst the teacher was still speaking. She didn’t look at Kageyama.

She didn’t look at anyone.

x

 

Kageyama was left with the still-raging professor, feeling utterly shocked by Hinata’s outburst, until he made eye contact with the smirking Kyou and it all became clear.

Rumours. Sleeping with the team.  
Volleywhore.

He figured it out in an instant, and as the look of comprehension dawned on his face he saw Kyou and his weasel-faced mate take a few steps back.

They knew he knew.

They also knew he had a temper.

Good.

Storming past Suzuki-sensei, he unceremoniously shoved his way through the crowd until they were face-to-pointy-face.  
His classmates saw the dangerous, smouldering fury in his eyes, and took a few more steps back.

“What’s wrong with Hinata?” he demanded, and they attempted to shrug their shoulders in nonchalance.

_Son of a bitch._

He’d had it with not goddamn knowing anything. It was time to get some answers.

Shrugging off his backpack, he yanked out the volleyball from where it was squished in amongst his gym clothes, and held it up for them.  
“Do you guys know how hard I can hit a volleyball at someone?” he breathed out, voice quiet in his anger. They didn’t move, stunned.  
“I’ll give you a clue. I knocked someone out once, with one serve. So how about you tell me, _right now,_ why you were smirking at Hinata Shouyou. Or you will find out exactly how hard I can spike at your heads.”

 

x

 

Daichi and Sugawara strode purposefully into the Karasuno High entranceway, footsteps almost in unison as they held their heads high.

They had made it almost the entire way to school without talking, and the captain knew that his friend was going over their game plans in his head, just as Daichi was. The strategy for Inter-High was obvious; the starting members were set, and they had been drilling skills for a fortnight. However a big chunk of their plan relied upon their decoy, who was currently knee-deep in other people's crap, as Ukai had put it. 

Which brought them to their second game plan;

_The Intervention._

The team were ready, they were ready, and it was time to sort out this whole Hinata mess before-

 

Suddenly, Suga broke their synchronisation and started sprinting forward.

Daichi was totally flummoxed until he looked over to where Suga was running and saw Kageyama, fist drawn back and the other hand buried in the collar of a terrified first-year.

 

“ _Kageyama!_ ” he roared, and sped up after Suga, who was launching himself at the other setter and yanking his arm back just in time.  
The first-year was dropped, gasping, to the ground, as Suga bound his arms through Kageyama’s and held on for dear life.  
“Hey! Stop it!” he wheezed as Kageyama wriggled like an extremely pissed-off salmon. “Are you okay?” he added to the first-year, who backtracked like a crab to a standing position and sprinted off with his scared friend.

Daichi shoved Kageyama’s arms down to his sides, as Suga let go, breathing heavily.

  
“What the hell is wrong with you-“  
” _They were bullying Hinata_!” Kageyama snarled, and the fury in his voice was almost frightening. His shoulders were shaking, eyes fixed on Daichi’s, and the captain held tight to his wrists for fear he would be next in line for a punch. “They were calling her names and cyber-harassing her all weekend and saying that… that she-“

“We know.”

  
Kageyama’s eyes went wide, then narrowed in renewed anger. “You knew they were calling her… that? You knew, and you didn’t-“  
“We found out on Thursday,” Suga said, soothingly, but it appeared to make little difference to Kageyama’s mood until he added, “…and we were planning to talk to the perpetrators today. As a team.”  
Kageyama appeared to calm down somewhat. “You were planning an intervention?”  
“ _Yes_ ,” Daichi said, a little annoyed at how ridiculous the whole situation was becoming, “and can you really blame us for not telling you after the way you just snapped?”

The setter dropped his face in shame, and Daichi felt a little satisfied.  
“Hinata was right,” he muttered eventually. “It sucks not to be told important things.”  
Then, he looked up, and Suga knew what he was going to ask.  
“You can come if you promise not to punch anyone,” he said, firmly, and Kageyama nodded with an abashed look on his face. “We’re meeting them today at lunch. The courtyard. I asked Yui to take care of Hinata whilst we talk to them.”  
“But if you so much as make a fist,” Daichi said dangerously, “I will get Tanaka to tackle you to the ground.”

“Deal.”

x

 

They were waiting and ready as the lunch bell rang.

Sure enough, Ai’s group soon rounded the courtyard corner, obviously looking for Hinata in her usual hiding spot. They found a little more than they bargained for.

The entire Karasuno team stood before them, bar Hinata, with uniform in various states of disarray but expressions the same mix of anger and defiance. They all stood with their arms folded, except for Tanaka, who had his ready to tackle Kageyama at any time.

Ai laughed.

“Hey, guys. Looking for your-“  
“Use the word volleywhore _one more time_ ,” Noya snapped. “I dare you.”

“Oh,” Ai said, green eyes widened in fake surprise. “Has that gotten old already? How about volleyslut? Volleyslag? Volley-“

There was a slight ripping noise as Tanaka tugged on Kageyama’s shirt to keep him from leaping at the girl.

Daichi stepped forward. “Hinata has earned her place in the team, and everyone here knows it.”  
“I’m sure she did,” one of Ai’s friends snickered, and they all laughed as one, hyenas cackling in unison before the Karasuno team.

  
Ai didn’t so much as crack a smile, though, eyes fixed on Daichi as he levelled his gaze.

  
“You know she’s earned it fair and square. She’s not a slut, or a half-and-half, or whatever other stupid excuses you want to make up for pure talent. She belongs in the team, gender regardless, and I don’t see why you have a problem with that. And you know what? I don’t care, because none of us have time for your reasons and excuses for what is quite simply bullying.”

Ai’s group weren’t laughing now.  
Their leader was rolling her eyes, with a bored expression, but Daichi knew she was listening. He knew this was their only shot.

“I know people like you. You’re like wildcats, hunting down the stragglers and the loners that got left behind by the rest. You look for the ones who can’t or won’t protect themselves. The ones that have no one to protect them.”  
The careless expression on Ai’s face was hardening as the group all nodded as one, and Daichi felt his courage rise at their agreement. They were all here, banded as one, and no amount of conniving queen-bees would break their resolve.  
He continued.

  
“You thought Hinata was easy prey. You saw how she was different, from you and from us, and you thought that just because of that, because she was a girl in a guy’s team, that we wouldn’t care about her either.” His expression darkened, and the change was shocking.

“You thought wrong.”

“Hinata is one of us,” Tanaka said, powerful shoulders square and head held high. “And we protect our own. Whether she needs it or not, we will always look out for her.”

“Yeah! You wanna take her on? Get ready to take on all of us, too.”

“That’s right! You go, Noya-san!”

”You too, Tanaka-san!”

“She’s our friend,” Asahi chipped in nervously, and everyone nodded again.

“And the thing is…” Daichi said, looking Ai full in the face, “who is going to look out for you? If the mill starts churning again, and all the poisonous rumours start to have your name on them, who is going to want to stick their neck out on your behalf? Hinata has never done anything to anybody, but it’s only a matter of time before people see through your web-spinning tactics and see you for the manipulator you are.

So, if I were you, Ai, I would start making some _real_ friends. Because the way you’re going? You might never have any.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel it's important to point out, this isn't me idealising how to solve bullying. Sometimes telling administration works. Sometimes telling your friends works. Sometimes they really do stand up against the bullies for you (as we did for a friend in early high school). Sometimes nothing works, and you wait it out.  
> However, you should always tell someone, because the more people you trust with this, the more likely a solution is to be found.
> 
> And if your friends bully? Screw em. As Dumbledore, that great fount of wisdom, said:  
> "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
> 
> Aside from that, I know I haven't been replying to your comments, but honestly half the time I don't know how to reply except with a hug. Here's to you, readers, I love you all. Keep those reviews coming!


	15. Yui

“So,” Hinata said, a little confused. “What did you want to ask me about? Something about Daichi?”

The two of them made an odd pair, sitting under the fir trees at the border of the Karasuno sports field as the sounds of a high-school lunch hour distantly echoed around them. A few first-years were booting a ball between them about 300 metres away, and they could see students milling around here and there, but apart from that they were completely alone (except for the amorous couples/pot-smokers possibly lurking in the trees behind them).

It made Hinata suspicious.  
Hence the Daichi question, which was apparently not what Yui had been expecting at all.

“What-“ the older girl was spluttering, and her doe eyes widened in shock as zigzags of pink rose across her cheeks. “Why would you think that?”  
“I don’t know.” The tiny blocker shrugged. “I thought you two were dating or whatever.”  
There was a pause, and she did a double take as Yui’s face grew redder and her ability to speak appeared to have deserted her.  
“You’re… not dating?”  
Yui shook her head, silently mortified.  
“Oh. Sorry.”

There was an awkward lull in the conversation, and Yui was equal parts totally humiliated and a little pleased. It was true that dialling Daichi’s number last Thursday had given her totally inappropriate butterflies in her stomach, and that she’d been able to elicit an actual _guffaw_ from him with her impression of Asahi playing Slenderman. He seemed to enjoy her company, and she enjoyed his triceps. Plus his biceps, and his strong jawline, and his steady green-brown gaze…

She cut off the tirade of Daichi-centric thoughts. This was about Hinata’s problems.

“Hinata,” she said gently, and the redhead’s shoulders shot up as she sensed the change in mood.  
“What?”  
Tactfully, Yui tried to ease into the topic.  
“I heard about…um… What people have been saying. About you.”

It didn’t appear to work. Hinata looked just as upset as if Yui had come right out and said the word _volleywhore_ , and she could see her eyes shining with sudden moisture.

“Hey,” Yui said softly, and put a cautious arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” Hinata whispered, and all of a sudden she was sobbing into Yui’s tracksuit jacket, shoulders bouncing up and down uncontrollably as fat tears rolled down her face and seeped into the dark blue material.

Yui didn’t even have to think about it.

Gently, she looped both arms around Hinata’s torso, soothingly patting her back as it hitched up and down.  
“Hey,” she hushed again, so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Hey. Hinata, this must have been so awful for you.”  
”It w-was,” Hinata choked out, voice uneven amidst the tears. “I f-felt so alone and I couldn’t t-tell anyone because… I… I just couldn’t and-“  
“I know. I’m sorry.”  
“Why?”

Hinata had withdrawn and was staring at Yui, eyes red around the edges and face damp.

”It wasn’t like you were saying that stuff.”

“I know,” Yui bit her lip. “I’m just sorry that you had to go through it. I’m sorry that you felt so alone. Because all along, you weren’t. It just felt that way.”

“I couldn’t tell Kageyama,” Hinata gurgled through a new wave of tears. “Even though he’s actually nice to me now… I just thought he’d judge me or never talk to me again.”

“That must have killed you to keep it secret when you were so scared.”

Hinata nodded.

Yui pulled her in for another hug, gently patting the tangle of ginger curls, and looked out across the field where they sat away from prying eyes. Clouds were rolling in over the pale horizon, and she could feel the coming rain in the wind that tousled the fir trees behind them, but they needed time for the boys to fight it out.

The school bell rang, and the football-playing first years picked up their ball and dashed to class, but still the pair under the trees didn’t move.

“Michimiya-san,” Hinata managed eventually, and amended “Yui” as the older girl opened her mouth to correct her.  
“Yeah?”  
“Why did you ask me to come here?”

_Ah._

This would take a while to explain. Lunch was certainly over, and they should theoretically be heading back to class now, but Yui couldn’t give two figs about a punishment right now. Hinata was staring at her with wide brown eyes, sore and tearful, and Yui found herself wondering how many times she’d sobbed like this. Alone.

 _Screw detention_ , she thought fiercely, _Screw the rain_.

“Hinata, I asked you to come here because I wanted to make sure you were safe. And I wanted to let you know…”  
Hinata was nervously shredding bits of grass, but she paused at the cliffhanger, nails digging into the next emerald blade.  
“Let me know what?”

“It’s going to be okay.”

There was a pause, and Hinata snorted. A pattering noise started up around them as the first of the raindrops fell.

“How would you-“

“You aren’t alone anymore. You have teammates here, and even better, friends. Daichi and the others are behind you, and they will protect you no matter what.”

Hinata’s face was slowly slacking as she realised what Yui was saying.

“You mean-“

“Yes. They know, and they should be tearing Ai a new one right about… now.”

Yui looked at her watch for comedic effect, and Hinata would have laughed except she was still stunned.

“Why would they do that?” she managed, eventually. “It’s none of their business. It doesn’t concern them. I’m just-“

“It _is_ their business, Hinata. They care about you. First of all, you have no idea what a pain in the ass you used to be to Daichi. He was living this peaceful life of captaincy and then enters this stubborn girl with a temper like a bull and a jump like an antelope, who turns his team upside down. Then you stunned everyone by turning out to be the best decoy in Karasuno history, and by actually getting Kageyama to cooperate in a team, which months ago would have been akin to Asahi getting a job as a ghostbuster. Now you guys are facing down regionals together in a matter of days, and what are they doing? They’re out there, fighting for you, because they _love you_. You are part of the team. You are worth defending.

Hinata Shouyou. To those boys, to the team, you are not and never will be ' _just'_ anyone.”

 

x

 

Forty minutes and one detention slip later, Hinata sat in class, twitching a little as Ai handed around the worksheets for geometric reasoning.  
She stiffened, but the taller girl simply tossed the paper down and walked off, without so much of a whisper under her breath.

She couldn’t believe it.

Occasionally, she caught them looking at her in the corner of her eye, as the afternoon dragged on amid the pouring rain and Suzuki-sensei reached phemonenal levels of boring, but they didn’t lean over and whisper to each other. They didn’t pass notes.  
The word that had haunted Hinata’s dreams was absent from the classroom that day.

Finally, the bell rang for the end of school and she dashed into the corridor, before turning around and seeing Ai casually packing up her things without so much of a glance her way.

There was no way that they’d given up.

Was there?

 

As she puzzled it over, walking outside, the sudden influx of light hit her eyes and she squinted.  
Lumpy silouhettes suddenly appeared in front of her, waiting, and she felt the twist of panic as she realised it wasn’t over, Ai and her group had somehow beaten her there and were standing there ready to grab and her skirt and call her more names and-

Her eyes adjusted.

It wasn’t Ai at all.

The Karasuno team stood before her, all trying to look nonchalant and absolutely failing.

Even Tsukishima, who prided himself on not caring about anything, was there. Although she was pretty sure Yamaguchi was holding his mp3 player hostage to make him stay put, judging by the dirty looks the blonde was throwing his way. She felt an amazing rush of appreciation for them all, standing as one and waiting patiently for her to join them. 

“Hey,” Daichi said casually, and she felt a small smile spread over her face.

“Hi.”

Kageyama was staring intensely at her over Suga’s shoulder, and she turned slightly to him, directing her next words his way as well as to the group spread out in front of her.

“Thank you. I don’t know if it’ll last, what you did, but Yui told me how you stood up for me and I just want to say-“  
“Don’t worry about it, dumbass,” Kageyama scoffed, but she could see his lips were twitching in an odd way, and she felt her own creep up into a broad grin. “We did it for you.”

She felt tears well up in her eyes, but they were entirely different to the ones she had shed that week, and the smile remained shining on her face.

Everywhere, the air smelled like drying concrete, and she realised that the rain pelting all throughout the afternoon had stopped.  
Only the puddles remained, slowly evaporating in the 4pm sunlight.

“So… “ Noya said, eventually, ”Wanna go get pork buns?”

She laughed.

“God, yeah.”

  
x

 

Walking her bike home, Hinata was deep in thought.

  
Daichi had lectured them all the way from the shops about how _this was the last bun outing, and until Friday they would all eat the healthiest meals of their lives to prepare for Inter-high, and if he caught anyone eating chocolate they would be doing burpees for the rest of training, and by anyone I mean you, Tanaka and Hinata._

She had laughed, but now she felt the first twist of excited nervousness in her stomach at the mention of the tournament.

  
With all the drama, the prospect of Inter-high had been forced to take a back seat, but now she felt the full force of excitement fizzling in her veins. In just four days, she would be there, standing on a real court for the first time.  
Playing against the other teams in the prefecture was a daunting prospect, especially considering half of them had refused to play Karasuno due to her. Yet Hinata felt the old force of her personality rise up to combat the nervousness, and it was like the blood in her veins was singing out _I’m ready, I’m ready, let’s show them who they’re really playing against_.

  
It was going to be a challenge.

  
She _loved_ a good challenge.


	16. All Eyes on Number 10

“The smell of Air Salompas!”

Sugawara turned at the words to see their little middle blocker, hands clutching her bag straps and mouth widening in an excited grin as they reached the end of the passage and stood before the court. Smiling, he turned back to see what she saw, and whistled.

Above them, fans were haphazardly squishing themselves into the hard plastic seats that looked down on the centre court, and the setter felt a tug in his heart as he saw the black-and-white Fly banner covering a small section of the railing.  
They had cried, all of them except the bemused first-years, when Kiyoko had unveiled it on their last practice before Inter-High, and it was difficult to explain the rush of emotions brought forth by the single white verb on a black banner.

But it was in their school name. It was in their nature.

They were here, after all, to fly.

 

Sugawara felt his long-suppressed competitive nature rise as he looked around at the other teams entering the court. Aoba Jousai was nowhere in sight – nor were Nekoma – but there were plenty of interesting players in their spots, all talking ceaselessly and clutching water bottles with nervous excitement. Who would play today? Who would go home with fierce pride in their hearts, and who with tears in their eyes?  
Who would win?

He knew who he _hoped_ would win. Who _deserved_ to win.

It was the team standing at his shoulders, black jackets zipped tight over orange uniforms and faces drawn tight with excitement and anticipation.  
Bar one.

“Hinata?” he said, cautiously, and she jerked upright.

“YES?” she squeaked loudly, uncurling her hands from their death-grip around her stomach. “I- I mean… yes, senpai?”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Just nervous,” she said, trying to smile, and Suga felt his face change into an expression of worry.

”Are you sure? Is it something you a-“

“Sorry, bathroom! Gotta go!” she blurted, dashing off with one hand over her mouth and the other around her tummy.

  
Tsukishima watched her leave, snickering.  
“I bet she’s going to throw up all that protein and vegetables you made her eat this week,” he said to Daichi, who frowned. “Her stomach’s probably not used to digesting anything that isn’t a pork bun.”  
“Shut up, jerk,” Kageyama snapped from his left, and suddenly Tanaka was leaping between them both.  
“Guys! Concentrate on your real enemy,” he said, slinging an arm around each. He had to stretch quite a way to get over Tsukishima’s shoulders, who winced at the physical contact.  
“Which is?” Kageyama scowled.  
“Take a look.”

They all turned, Tanaka rotating the three of them in a half-circle spin, to see the blue-and-white group striding down the hallway.

 

x

 

“Tobio,” the young man before them said with a lazy grin, running one hand through his brown wavy locks. His hair was so perfect it could be a wig, Noya noted with some jealously.

The air of superiority he exuded was choking, however, and the libero was glad that his attention was focused squarely on Kageyama, whose sharp blue gaze was unwaveringly fixed forward.

“Oikawa.”

They stood in front of one another there in the corridor, unmoving, and Noya wanted to roll his eyes. Their rivalry was absolutely ridiculous. If only Hinata were here, she’d be cracking stupid jokes and breaking the tension effortlessly…  
His wish was granted as the redhead returned, sweat beading on her forehead and face clammily pale.

“Sorry guys! Just feeling kinda nervooooOOHSHITTHEGREATKINGISHERE!”  
Oikawa turned with a look of rare surprise.  
“Who are you?”  
“ _Did she just call him the Great King_?” a turnip-headed guy behind him muttered to his spiky haired companion, who rolled his eyes.  
“Let’s pretend that nickname doesn’t exist.”

Meanwhile, Noya could feel Tanaka stiffening next to him as Oikawa inclined his head towards the tiny middle blocker. His surprised expression was melting into a charming grin as he realised the newcomer was female.

“And who might you be?” he said, actually making for her hand, and Tanaka was now virtually vibrating in place with fury at the captain’s audacity.

Luckily, Hinata was not as floored as expected.

“I’m the one who you refused to play against,” she said, coolly, and the Aoba Jousai team looked taken aback.

  
“You-“ Oikawa spluttered. He visibly took in her orange-and-black uniform. “ _You’re_ playing on the team? _You?_ ”  
“I thought if a girl was playing she’d at least be tall,” muttered Turnip-head again, and Tanaka lost it.  
“Why don’t you play her, _then_ judge!” he snapped, rolling up his sleeves, and Noya was about two seconds away from joining him, but then Suga was grabbing him by the elbow and the seniors were hustling them away towards their spot by the court.

“Good luck, Chibi-chan! King!” Oikawa called after them, dulcet tones sounding increasingly obnoxious.  
Noya could see Hinata gritting her teeth.

“Don’t worry, Shou-chan,” the libero whispered as they set down their bags. “We’ll show them.”

She tried to manage a smile, but then an ominous gurgling sound was heard from her middle, and suddenly she was dashing off towards the bathrooms again.

Tsukishima and Kageyama groaned as one.

“Can’t we give her something to stop her running off?” Kageyama demanded of Kiyoko, who patted him lightly.  
“She’s just nervous. There’s no cure for nervousness.”

”We could give her ginger,” Tanaka suggested, and everyone looked bemused until he followed it up with, “that settles the stomach, right?”  
Tsukishima patted his pockets with a dry expression. “Gee, I seemed to have left my ginger root in my _other_ trackpants. Damn.”  
“You- Shut up, Tsukishima! Do you have a better suggestion?”  
“No. That doesn’t mean yours wasn’t stupid.”

Daichi was putting a hand to his temples, looking like he was holding back an aneurysm, and next to him Kageyama was looking worriedly towards the bathrooms.

“I’m gonna make sure she’s okay,” he muttered, and strode off without another word.

The captain sighed.

“Okay, as for the few of us that aren’t sick, playing nurse, or arguing about ginger. Time for a team talk. Our first opponents are Dateko, famous for their Iron Wall…”

 

x

 

“Hey, are you Hinata?”

The group of girls standing at the bathroom mirror, applying lipgloss to faded pink smiles, turned to look at the tiny redhead, splashing water on her face over and over again.  
Gasping, she turned off the tap and looked up woozily.  
“Hah? Me?”  
The tallest reached into her bag for eyeliner, handing it to the blonde on her left.  
“Yeah. Someone was yelling at you from outside. You didn’t hear cause you were throwing up…”  
“Are you okay?” another added, and she blanched.  
“Yeah! I’m just nervous…” she muttered, and they all tore their gazes off the mirror to stare at her.  
“Wow, you’re so dedicated! I would never throw up because I was nervous for my boyfriend!”  
“I would!”  
“Yeah but Miki, you’re _terrible_ with nerves. You can’t even watch Mean Girls without getting secondhand nervousness for that redhead chick and-“

“I’m playing, actually.”

 _Now_ they were staring.

“You’re _playing_?”  
“ _Here_?”

She nodded, and their eyes were the size of dinner plates.  
She braced herself for more Ai-esque shenanigans.

“Whoaaaaa…” the blonde breathed eventually. “That’s-“  
“AMAZING!”  
“Wow, that’s so cool! No wonder you’re nervous!”  
“You’ll be great though! Just gotta stop throwing up long enough to get out on that court, girl!”

They were all grinning at her, actually looking _envious_ , and she felt the nervousness start to melt away. These strangers were on her side – telling her to get out and play like she meant it- and suddenly her stomach was as calm as the summer sea.  
Then she remembered.

“Someone was calling me?”  
The girl named Miki nodded.  
“Yeah, and he sounded pretty worried. Are you-“  
“ _Crap_! Kageyama!”

As she ran out, they all stared after her in amazement, makeup forgotten.

“Did you guys see her uniform?” one said as the door swung closed.  
“Yeah. Karasuno, right?”  
“When are they playing?”  
“Should we go watch?”  
”Yeah, if you two finish applying your eyeliner before Christmas, we might just make it!”  
“Shut up, Miki! And give me back my mascara!”

x

 

“I came to fetch you,” Kageyama was growling as he hustled her back down towards the court, leaving curious stares in their wake. “the game’s starting next, so if you have anything else to throw up you’d better do it now.”  
“I don’t feel sick anymore,” she said, smiling up at him, and he looked thrown by the friendliness in her face.  
“That’s… that’s good,” he muttered eventually. “I don’t want my partner in bad form on the court, cause-“  
“Kageyama?”  
He broke off at the interruption, looking down at her confusedly. “Hah?”

“Did you just call me your partner?”

He actually tripped forward, one foot snagging behind the other as she looked quizzically up at him. Stuttering, he swiped one hand through his raven hair.  
She waited.

As they neared the team, she grabbed his wrist, gently, and he flinched.  
“Kageyama?’  
“Yeah?” he said, looking away this time, but she didn’t let go.  
“I’m proud to be your partner. I hope after this game, you’ll be proud to be mine.”

For the longest time, he didn’t say anything.

It was as she slipped off her tracksuit jacket, rubbing her arms and shivering in the cool court atmosphere, that she heard him reply.

“Dumbass,” he murmured, so quietly she wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear it. “I’m already proud to be yours.”

 

x

 

“Let’s go Karasuno!”  
“Fight, Daichi! You can do it!”  
“GO TSUKKI!” “-Shut up, Yamaguchi-“ “SORRY TSUKKI!”

and then, they heard it.

“GOOOO, GIRL FROM THE BATHROOMS!”  
“DON’T THROW UP THIS TIME!”  
“MIKI, THAT’S NOT HELPFUL! GO STRANGE GIRL, YOU CAN DO IT!!!!”

“Friends of yours?” the captain asked, looking at Hinata curiously as she took her place by the net. Her ability to attract new fans was still a novelty to the team, whose group of supporters usually consisted of siblings and ex-players. Judging by the looks on the faces of Noya and Tanaka, these new additions were not unwelcome. 

  
“Sort of,” HInata amended, smiling. Then she looked to their left. “Hey, Yui’s here too!”  
The captain went bright red, waving awkwardly at the senior girl, who waved back so enthusiastically she almost hit the gentlemen to her right.

 

As Dateko’s Number 1 got ready to serve, Hinata turned her face towards the sky, closing her eyes and breathing in the court air.  
She could hear the shuffling and murmuring of supporters taking their seats, but nobody was whispering about her yet. The opposite team was too focused on their start to pay her much heed. She was, for now, unnoticed.

Her cheshire’s grin widened.  
As Ukai had said… soon she would be the only thing anyone noticed.

 

x

 

“ _Asahi_!”

The ace leapt into position, tanned forearms receiving the ball with well-practiced accuracy, and it sailed over to Kageyama.

Watching it spin like a small red and green planet before his waiting palms, Kageyama could sense a figure staring at him expectantly. Hinata was hungry for the ball, he knew that, but the first kill had to be-

“ _Tanaka_!” he shouted, and the bald spiker smacked the toss down for their first point of the match.

As the spiker and the libero roared their approval, Daichi yelling at them to calm down, Kageyama could see Hinata out of the corner of his eye. She was waiting patiently for her turn to shine, but he knew it was killing her to save up their quick strike. She wanted to unleash it on the world, to debut the oddball parternship and show everyone how they worked in sync. She wanted to show everyone that they were dangerous.

He knew, because he felt the same.

But the second point went to Asahi, the ace slamming the ball perfectly to the corner of the court after a beautiful save by Noya.

Kageyama could see Hinata tapping her fingers on her leg.

 _Next_ , he promised in his head, but out loud he simply yelled “I know! Ready, dumbass?!”  
She nodded, but he saw her smile.

Sure enough, after a steady serve by Tanaka, the opposing team sent it neatly back into Daichi’s waiting forearms-

  
Kageyama could sense her, ambling in the corner of his eye-

  
She changed momentum suddenly, heel jerking to the right as she sprinted towards the net-

  
The ball hit his palms, and she was flying-

She was suspended, and it felt like the whole court was holding its breath-

Then the toss made contact, and she smacked it down, eyes closed, in a blaze of energy.

The opposing team never had a prayer.

 

As it bounced away to the wall, they stood frozen, as the supporters did.  
Everyone was staring as Hinata landed gently,  
a crow coming back to rest.

“What the hell was that?” someone whispered, and then Ukai was shouting “Nice kill, Hinata!” and the stadium erupted in a wave of confusion and amazement.

“Did that tiny player just-“  
“Yeah, and she’s a girl!”  
”Did you see that? That little girl was flying!”  
“She had her eyes closed the whole time!”  
“You rock, bathroom girl!”

Dateko were looking at their little number 10 with new eyes, the giant in the front row especially, and Kageyama smirked a little.  
She wouldn’t be leaving their attention now.

Hinata Shouyou would shine so bright she would blind them to anything else.

  
He exchanged knowing glances with Tanaka and Daichi, and together they yelled out a single phrase.

“Hinata! One more!”

“YES!”


	17. Frozen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna aim to have this done in the next few chapters or so, coinciding with the end of the first anime season... so I'll try to make these ones good for y'all! Enjoy the UST and cuteness whilst it lasts cause shit's about to get real

They won.

It had been a difficult three-set match, especially after Dateko’s giant had wised up to Hinata’s shenanigans, but even then she was racing around the court like a mad thing and he was blindly following her.

Even then, when they thought she had revealed her best hand, she was still a secret weapon. Because as long as he was following her, Tanaka and Asahi were free as birds.

Karasuno’s decoy was in fine form today.

Looking across at the little redheaded figure, chattering away nineteen to the dozen with Dateko’s Aone, Kageyama felt a bubble of happiness working up his throat. It was mixed with something else, however, and he couldn’t place it until he realised.

It was _pride_.

How attached was he, to this small and annoying creature, that he could feel like this after a game?

Not obsessively analysing his own mistakes, not strategising for the upcoming game against his old senpai and bitter ex-teammates, but instead looking over at her and wanting to say-

What, exactly?

That he was proud of her? That she shone so bright he could still feel her burning in the corner of his eyes? That when she leapt for the ball, he could almost see the wings sprouting from her shoulder blades?  
That he was really worried all of these thoughts weren’t teammate-y at all, and that he was a little bit in love with her?

He was pretty sure _everyone_ was a little bit in love with Hinata Shouyou.

Nobody, not even the giant of Dateko High, was resistant to her infectious laugh. He could see him now, pale skin reddening a little as she punched him good-naturedly on the arm and bounced up and down with the force of her post-game excitement. Only Hinata could elicit an actual conversation from the infamously stoic Takanobu Aone.

But then she turned to look at Kageyama, eyes shining and mouth wide in a smile of pure satisfaction, and he swallowed.  
She didn’t look at _everyone_ that way.

And then she was walking over, brown eyes fixed on blue, and he was ready to say it all, just get it out into the open so it would stop tearing him apart like he’d tried to do that day when he’d found out about the rumours-

She stopped. Looked up at him.

“Hey, Kageyama-“

Then a high pitch voice shattered the air between them as Hinata was viciously tackled from behind.

 

x

 

“SHOU-CHAN!!!”

The high-pitched voice rocketed Hinata back to reality, and she jerked her head around for the source of the voice. It was too feminine to be Noya, who stubbornly refused to use her last name, and too squeaky to be her mother…

She felt a small figure leap onto her back, and she almost tipped over, before Kageyama’s hands were gripping her arms and holding her upright.

He was staring over her shoulder, and she was about to ask who it was when a tiny pair of hands settled over her eyes.

“Guess who, Shou-chan!” the voice said, attempting to drop into a lower pitch and utterly failing, and she laughed.

“If you don’t tell me who you are I’ll fall backwards on you,” she said, dangerously, vision still obscured by grubby little fingers. “Starting from 3…2…1-“  
She started to lean backwards and the voice desperately shrieked “ _It’s Natsu! It’s Natsu!_ ”

Cackling with laughter, Hinata rose back upright and felt her sister’s legs loosen from their death-grip around her waist.  
“You’re so mean, Shou,” Natsu said petulantly, lifting her hands off and hopping down from Hinata’s back.

Then, she grabbed onto her older sister’s shirt and froze.

Hinata felt her stiffen and knew she’d caught sight of Kageyama, who was staring down at her with the look of terror that only those inexperienced with small children can muster.  
“What is that?” he whispered.

“I’m a who, not a what!” she heard Natsu say grumpily, and suddenly her sister was peeking up at him with her liquid brown eyes, even larger than Hinata’s.

Kageyama looked floored.

Realising that he wasn’t going to muster up a greeting any time soon, Hinata sighed and got ready to make the necessary introductions, but then Natsu was stepping away from the safety of her sister and sticking out one hand.

“Hinata Natsu!” she announced. “Nice to meet you, how do you do?”

“I-“ Kageyama was flicking his gaze between Hinata and her sister, obviously stunned at the resemblance, but eventually he reached out one hand to shake Natsu’s, as gently as he could. “Kageyama Tobio. Nice to meet you.”

Hinata could see Natsu evaluating him in her Sherlock-esque manner, deciding whether he was worth talking to, and was both relieved and slightly taken aback when she opened her mouth and let loose.

“I saw you playing with Shou-chan and you are REALLY tall and I want to be as tall as you one day but Mum says that Shou is really short so I probably won’t be but I say that I’m already almost as tall as her and I’m eight years younger than her so if I keep growing for eight years I’ll be WAY taller than her and then I can be really good at volleyball, like you, but I guess if I’m not then I can just be like Shou and jump really high except I hope I get hit in the face less and-“

“Natsu!” Hinata actually covered her sister’s mouth, mortified. “Slow down! Jeez, have you not talked all day or something?”

“It’s okay,” Kageyama said suddenly, and she reacted with shock. He was regarding Natsu with the weirdest expression, and eventually she realised. He was _smiling_.

Oh god, Natsu was actually _charming_ him.

True to Kageyama form, he was being awkward about it, but she was still taken aback when he asked her, with total sincerity, if she liked to play volleyball.

Natsu nodded so fast she almost shook free the baubles holding her little pigtails in place.

”Yeah! Shou-chan’s teaching me, and-“

Kageyama snorted. “ _Hinata_ is teaching you? She can barely do it herself, what’s she doing te-“

“Don’t interrupt,” Natsu scolded, and Kageyama shut his mouth with an amazed expression. Hinata tried not to laugh. “ _Anyway,_ Shou-chan was teaching me how to receive, and it really hurt but now I’m really good and I think I’ll be able to play in a boy’s team one day, just like Shou.”

She said this with an expression of sheer pride, gazing up at her sister, and suddenly they were both looking at her (although Kageyama’s expression was decidedly different to Natsu’s), and she didn’t know what to say.

“Yeah, well,” Hinata mumbled. “It beat playing hide-and-seek all the time, that’s for sure.”

Kageyama opened his mouth, possibly to say something rude in response, when suddenly Noya and Tanaka materialised next to him.

“Hey guys, what are you- WHO IS THAT?!”

They were staring at Natsu with matching expressions of amazement, and almost simultaneously they both bent slightly at the knees to talk to her (although Noya didn’t really have to bother).

“Are you Hinata’s twin?” they asked, and Natsu giggled.  
“No, I’m five!”

Tanaka clutched his chest in mock amazement, leaning to one side. “But you’re so tall and beautiful! You can’t be five!”

Natsu’s cheeks were turning pink with pleasure and she was puffing herself up, almost on tippy-toes.  
“I like them,” she whispered to her sister, who rubbed her head affectionately.  
“Of course you do.”

 

Eventually, tearing herself away from an adoring Tanaka and Noya, Natsu ran off to join Hinata’s mother by the entranceway, waving madly and shouting, “Bye, Tobio! See you at home, Shou-chan! Love you more than rainbows!”

Noya and Tanaka (alongside half the Karasuno team and supporters) looked after her with open mouths.  
“So cute…” they muttered in amazement, walking off, and Kageyama nodded slightly, still looking dazed from the whirlwind of energy that was Hinata Natsu.

Sure they were out of earshot, Hinata turned back to Kageyama, and her affectionate smile faded as nervousness bubbled in her insides, more potent than her pre-game jitters.

  
“Hey, Kageyama… I was going to ask you before, but then-“  
“You were attacked by your little sister,” he finished. “Yeah. What did you want to know?”  
“I-“  
She was pressing her fingertips together, uncharacteristically taciturn, and he was looking highly suspicious.  
“What’s wrong, dumbass? What did you do?”  
“I- NOTHING! I just wanted to know why-“  
“Why what?”  
“I-“  
“Hinata,  _spit it out_.”  
“I’m trying but Natsu’s right, you shouldn’t interrupt so much! I just want to know what you meant when you said… _so what if I am_?”

“Hah?!”

He was looking completely flabbergasted now, and she wanted to leave it right there and then, but she had to know. Everyone was picking up their stuff, and she knew she didn’t have a lot of time before they’d be heading back to the school, but if she didn’t ask now she would never ask. Only now, on this post-game high, did she have the courage to find out the truth.

“When everyone was talking about me,” she continued, quietly. “You said that you didn’t care if they thought you were in love with me. And then you said, _so what if I am_?”

His shoulders shot up as he got it.

For a while, she thought he was going to laugh and call her a dumbass again, but he didn’t. He stood completely still and stared at her like a deer in the headlights.  
And she realised.

“Wait,” she said, with slow comprehension. “Kageyama, are you?”

He still didn’t say anything.  
“Kageyama,” she said again, and suddenly it felt like a thousand butterflies were all doing the tango at once in her belly because he was staring at her with a panicked look that confirmed everything.

All of the unreadable expressions, all of the texts, that cautious embrace charged with so much unusual energy…  
Everything had come down to this.  
Now, she knew.

And he knew she knew. It was written on her face, the realization widening her eyes and mouth as she waited for him to say something- anything – in return.

Eventually, gaze not moving from her own, he said in almost a whisper, “Everyone’s leaving. We gotta go.”  
“Wait-“  
“Hinata, it’s time to go back.”

And then he was picking up his stuff and walking off towards the team, and she was left alone at the side of the court, post-victory high melting away.

 

x

 

Kageyama let the water cascade freely over his hair, flattening his raven locks and streaming over his face and shoulders. Usually, a hot post-game shower felt like heaven itself, but not today. Today, he was close to drowning himself with the frustration he felt.

 _Idiot,_ he thought, angrily shaking some shampoo out of a randomly selected bottle and mashing it into his scalp. _She was right there, waiting, and you froze up. She’ll never ask you again in a million years_.

He stuck his head forward, having to duck a little to avoid hitting the showerhead, and sighed as the water drummed against the top of his head.  
He couldn’t tell her. Even in a God-given opportunity like that one, when Hinata was happier than he’d ever seen her and directly asking for a confession, he still couldn’t do it.

Why?

He knew the answer without even having to pause for thought. If he answered her, then she would be forced to respond and reject him. He didn’t want to see those liquid brown eyes filled with awkward pity. He didn’t want to see their partnership deteriorate; knowing, as they would, that it meant a lot more to him than it did to her. He didn’t want any of it.

The only thing worse than being in love with Hinata, he reasoned, would be knowing for sure that it was unrequited.

That didn’t make him any less pissed at himself, though.

 

The self-loathing he felt was only exacerbated when he got out of the shower and realised he’d used his mother’s fruity shampoo by accident. He’d be smelling like blueberries all day tomorrow.

“Sometimes, I really hate myself,” he muttered, drying his hair a little rougher than necessary and stalking out of the bathroom.

 

x

 

The moonlight reflect off her little silver Nokia, clenched tightly in one anxious fist. She took in deep breaths of the cool night air, trying to calm herself, but with every ring more and more butterflies were joining those already jostling in her stomach. She was utterly on edge, anxious and confused almost to the point of anger, and not in any danger of falling asleep.

It was stupid, to be up worrying about a boy before the game. She knew she should be resting up for their big match tomorrow. If Kageyama was the most talented player she’d ever seen, and Oikawa was superior to him…

They were screwed unless she got some sleep. Fast.

Yet she also knew that, if Kageyama was worrying about this anywhere near as much as she was, then he wouldn’t be asleep either. Maybe he was also pacing up and down on the gravel path outside his house, wanting to call her and reassure her that their partnership was still the same, that whatever feelings they had wouldn’t get in the way of Karasuno’s path to victory. That they would sort the whole mess out after their game, win or lose.

At least, that’s what she would do if he’d _freaking pick up_.

“Answer, damnit,” she muttered with no small amount of frustration. “Come on, come on…”

  
But no. It was answerphone again, and she smiled for the fifth time at the sound of twelve-year-old Kageyama’s dorky voicemail message.  
She wanted to call again. Maybe it would be sixth time lucky.  
But it was late, and he obviously didn’t want to talk to her, so she sighed and left a hesitant message. The moon stared down at her anxious footsteps, silent as the phone in her hand.

Returning inside and crawling into bed, she thought that maybe she was glad he hadn’t picked up.

There was a certain futility in calling someone when you had no idea what to say.


	18. Phantom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prepárense.
> 
> rambly kageyama is returning in all his dorky glory

“ _Hey, it’s me. Hinata Shouyou. Look, I know calling you five times is kind of stalker-y, and all those messages probably didn’t help, but I just wanted to talk… I don’t want you to be worrying about this, okay? I’m sorry I brought it up before the game, that was stupid, I’m stupid… anyway, if you get a crap night’s sleep because of me, I’ll never forgive myself so try to_ -“

The machine cut itself off, and Kageyama hit “replay” for the third time. It was 4am, his room pitch-black save for the blaring light of his phone screen, and he was very much heading towards a crap night’s sleep anyway. 

He felt his stomach clench, and curled into a ball, fingers digging into the shamelessly holey excuse for sweatpants that constituted as his pajamas as he listened to her scratchy voice. He'd tried everything - a hot shower, his comfiest clothes, push-ups, even (to his instant shame) a tiny bit of yoga - but sleep was taunting him, hanging just out of reach as he lay in bed and agonised over his best friend. He couldn’t even _think_ about the Aoba Jousai match right now. That was, it seemed, the only blessing in their train-wreck of a partnership; every thought he had was about Hinata. There was no room for any nerves.

She was going to ask him about it again. Hinata was like a dog with a bone sometimes; if something got her attention, she would never let it go. He used to find it a little cute, how fixated she got on the slightest things, but somehow it wasn’t as cute when his heart was on the line.

_Should he deny it?_

  
He couldn’t. Hinata was dense sometimes (not that he wasn’t guilty of that too; there was a reason he’d forged his parents’ signature on his last school report card), but she wasn’t brainless. She already knew, and denying his feelings was pointless.

So, all that would happen now would be by her own design.

Volleyball matches aside, at the end of the day, he would win or lose.  There was nothing he could do now.

He turned off his phone. Yanked his earphones out, and tossed them over the side of the bed.

Rolling over, he closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.

 

x

 

“You look like crap, Kageyama. And why do you smell like blueberries?”

“Shut up,” he snarled at Tsukishima, who smirked as he turned back around to face the front of the bus. Daichi, however, was still facing the setter with a worried expression.

“You alright, Kageyama?”  
“Blondie is right, you do look a little peaky,” Tanaka put in from his seat near the back, eliciting matching scowls from both Kageyama and Tsukishima.  
“Bite me, baldy. At least I have hair.”  
“I don’t look peaky! Don’t make me sound like a sick Victorian child!”  
“Sorry! I’m just looking out for you, and _yes I do have hair!_ ”  
“Stubble doesn’t count.”  
“Shut up, Tsukishima! Kageyama, how much sleep did you get?!”

The setter considered lying, but that was just another way to spend energy that he didn’t have.

“About two and a half hours.”  
Daichi turned around again, and his face was enough to make Asahi shrink back in his seat.  
“Two- _TWO HOURS_?!”  
“And a half.”

The captain was as angry as Kageyama had ever seen him.

“Why the _hell_ ,” he demanded with a stony expression, “would you go to bed that late? Are you stupid? Jeopardising the team like that, you don’t deserve to play today! Why on earth did you-“  
“I was nervous.”

It was, technically, the truth.

Judging by the way the captain suddenly swallowed his anger, the look on Kageyama’s face was enough to prove his statement true. Daichi turned around, muttering angrily but no longer reprimanding Kageyama, and he put his head back against the bus seat.  
He could feel Hinata staring at him worriedly, but he didn’t look at her.

He just closed his eyes.

 

x

 

“So, are we clear on positions?” Ukai finished with a determined expression, and the team nodded as one, except Hinata, who hadn’t been listening to anything he’d said the entire time.

  
Kageyama was staring unwaveringly at the whiteboard with their setup painstakingly scribbled on in green, but she _knew_ he hadn’t been paying attention either. He’d been staring at the same spot for the last ten minutes, for one thing, and for another he hadn’t even blinked when Tsukishima referred to them as “the king and his pet commoner”.

Was he thinking about what to say to her? Was he _worrying_ about it, right before their biggest game?

She fidgeted, waiting for Ukai to finish up and let them start stretching, when she could march over there and reassure him to her heart’s content. She had been trying to plan her speech all morning, but it was a little difficult to finish when she had no idea how she felt. Determinedly, she decided she’d know when the opportunity arriv-

“I need to go to the bathroom.” announced a deep voice next to her, and she jerked.

_Now was her chance_

“Me too!”

Her hand shot up right along next to Kageyama’s, and he looked dismayed, but there was nothing he could do about it now. That is, unless he wanted to run the risk of peeing himself during the game.  
(Although judging from the panicked look in his deep blue eyes, it was looking like almost the preferable option.)

“Alright,” Daichi said, looking at them weirdly. “Kageyama, you show Hinata where the female bathrooms are. Don’t let her get lost!”

“Hold her hand if you have to!” Tanaka yelled after them, and they heard the _whap!_ of someone’s palm slapping his bare skin (probably Suga).

Kageyama was rocketing off towards the bathrooms, obviously keen to pee and return as fast as humanly possible, and she was having to take about three steps for every one of his elongated strides.  
“Hey, slow down!” she puffed, almost breaking into a jog to keep up with him. “Kageyama-“  
He wasn’t answering, wasn’t even looking at her, and she felt an awful sensation of helplessness rising in her stomach. She could feel him slipping out of reach, distancing himself from her, and she cursed herself as she realised it was all her fault for mentioning the goddamn l-word in the first place. She’d freaked him out; scared him off their budding friendship by demanding to know if it was anything more.  
Still, it wasn’t like she wasn’t _trying_ to fix things up. He was just refusing to let her.

She gave it one more go as he came to a halt at the line stretching out from the men’s bathrooms and halfway down to the drinks fountain.  
“Kageyama, please listen-“  
She grabbed his arm, when he suddenly stiffened.

At first she thought it was at the contact. Then she realised he was listening to the lanky players in front of them, having a loud discussion as they waited in line.

“…cute, ay? Like, she’s tiny but there’s still something attractive about her face. Right?”  
“Yeah but you know they’re just keeping her on for shock value. I mean, did you see the game yesterday? She can’t do nothing but jump around and look pretty.”  
“She caught the ball with her face like three times, too! Haha, did you see-“

Hinata couldn’t hear any more of it, because Kageyama was suddenly hustling her off around a vacant corner by the entranceway, desire to pee even now overridden by the need to protect her.

She slumped against the wall, awkwardness with Kageyama instantly forgotten.

Suddenly, she was very, very tired.

x

 

Hinata looked as exhausted as Kageyama felt.

Her eyes were drooping at the corners and her mouth was even thinner than usual and her whole body just screamed _I want to go home, sleep, and not wake up for a couple millennia_.  
Even her _hair_ looked tired.

Oh yes, that had been Kageyama all bloody morning, at least until they got to the court and all tiredness was instantly pushed aside to make room for a burning desire to hand Oikawa’s ass to him on a silver platter.

Yet Hinata was exhibting something beyond physical tiredness, too, and he realised that she was _tired of it_.

All the rejections (Kageyama felt a flash of guilt that he had originally been a major part of that), all the backlash, all the bullying and the nerves and the constant, constant need to prove her place on a team that she apparently didn’t really belong on…

Anyone would get tired of that.  
Even Hinata.

“Hey,” he started, still feeling awkward about talking to her but knowing that it was no longer the issue at hand. “About what they were saying-“

“Is it true?”

She looked at him, and the expression on her face could break a thousand hearts in two. It was the look of someone who used to be confident, and was slowly realising that there was nothing to have confidence in anymore. It was the look of someone who had been told, over and over, that there was a difference between who they were and who they wanted to be, and that such difference was never going to get any smaller, that they were going to keep dreaming and living and the two were never going to align.

Here was somebody who had tried too hard, for too long, to be told that it didn’t matter at all.

But he remembered the way she used to look.  
How _fierce_ she was; how nothing, not even gravity, seemed to hold her down. How she soared above them, a bird amongst geckos, seldom touching the ground.  
How her determination shone like the hair clouding her small face.  
How she’d annoyed the living crap out of him with her jumps and her ceaseless talking in that stupid squeaky voice, all _little giant_ this and _female Olympian_ that.

And he knew that, despite how much he’d wanted to kill her many times, he never wanted her to be grounded, never wanted her to lose those wings of determination that lifted her off her feet.  
He’d loved watching her in the air.

This flightless Hinata was breaking his heart, and he could stand it no longer.

“Hinata,” he said, equal parts mortified at the flush working its way down his neck and certain that he had to continue, “Do you want to know the truth? What I wanted to say yesterday – what I’ve been trying to say for weeks now, but there was never a right time and also I’m a coward and now- well, anyway, I think you should hear it. The truth, I mean.”

Her expression changed, just a little, and he continued.

“The truth is that you’re annoying as shit. The truth is that you never shut up and your serves are still terrible even after months of practice, and honestly I don’t know if they’ll ever get better because you suck at them in a supernatural kind of way. The truth is that you make life just a little bit more difficult for everyone in the team.”

He paused for breath, fully aware that it was possibly not the right time to stop but needing to avoid saying something embarrassing anyway.

“But that’s only part of the truth. The rest of the truth is that we’ve grown around you, and if you leave us, I don’t know how we’ll deal with that. The truth is that I’ve grown around you, because at the beginning I was a lonely asshole, and now I’m still kind of lonely and still kind of an asshole, but at least I’m an asshole that’s part of a team. You surprise us every day, because you’re right, we did just think you were a wannabe girly-girl who was gonna slow the whole team down, but instead you’ve turned out to be the best decoy Karasuno’s ever seen, and I don’t think anyone will get used to that any time soon. The truth is that I’ve never met anyone like you before, who yelled for my tosses and hit almost all of them, who saw past the crown and didn’t care about my reputation as long as I still tossed to you.

All of which leaves me nothing more to say of the truth except that if you give up on playing, I swear to god, I will kick your tiny ass, because there is no way that we can win- no way we can _survive_ \- without the Hinata Shouyou we know and vaguely tolerate. You are one of us. No matter what anyone else says.”

For only the third or fourth time in history, Hinata was completely still.

Leaning forward, he felt the nervousness slide away because he needed to do this right, and he needed to do this right now. He owed her that.

And so, heart in his mouth, he bent down and pressed the gentlest of kisses to Hinata’s forehead.

“Okay?” he managed, as nonchalantly as possible.

Hinata looked at him, _really_ looked at him, and suddenly her temporary paralysis had shattered and she was stepping forward, toes extending and chin lifting as she kissed him in return, squarely on one cheekbone.

And she was whispering “thank you” against his skin, and he was closing his eyes, trying to imprint the sensation in his memory forever, but then she was grabbing one hand, pulling him forward, and running, yelling “N _OW LET’S GO KICK SOME GREAT KING ASS_!” as they dashed towards the court together.

Later he would feel the kiss stinging, phantom, on his cheekbone. But for the moment he was too preoccupied with the girl running alongside him, sprinting towards the volleyball stadium with a smile on her face and his hand tight in her own.


	19. Keep Dreaming

“Where the hell were you guys?!”

The warm romantic glow suffusing Kageyama’s mind faded in an instant as the captain glared at them both with an expression that most people only saw in their nightmares. He had the stressed expression of somebody that did not appreciate their magic secret weapon disappearing three minutes before the match’s initiation, and Kageyama felt vaguely guilty as he saw matching expressions on the faces of Suga and Kiyoko. Beside him, Hinata wilted before Daichi’s worried face.

“Sorry!” she said, looking up at him with big eyes, and he saw the captain weaken.

“It’s alright,” he muttered. “We were just getting worried. I’ve never known anyone take so long to pee.”

That was when Kageyama realised his bladder was still uncomfortably full.

“Um,” he said, and Daichi’s face darkened even more.  
“You’re joking.”  
“No, I’m sorry, I’ve just gotta-“  
“RUN, GODDAMNIT!”

As he sprinted across the court, past the bemused-looking referee and the rest of the Karasuno team, he saw Oikawa snickering with his spiky haired mate.

 _Just wait,_  he thought grimly, dodging curious players and mothers with prams intent on tripping him up. _Just wait until Hinata kicks your ass_.

x

 

Three minutes later, the game finally got off to a start, after Kageyama returned from the bathroom for the second time and Daichi’s blood pressure had finally gotten back to safe levels. On the whistle’s blast, the atmosphere of the court changed dramatically. Here was a higglety pigglety team, each with their own personalities and playing styles (none of which perfectly complemented the others – and in Tsukishima and Kageyama’s case, may one day actually lead to fisticuffs in the gym). They’d had a rocky start, what with the lack of a coach and then Hinata’s bullies and Nekoma handing their asses to them at their first and only practice match. They’d had enough trials and tribulations to last a lifetime.

Yet after everything, they were here. They were here, and they were ready to win.

Daichi could sense the energy of his team, as if each of them had their own personal aura. Asahi was nervous, but he still saw him throw a tense smile at the grinning Noya, whose cat smile betrayed his excitement at the game. Only a libero like him would be raring to take on a serve like Oikawa’s. There was Tanaka, a bundle of raw power waiting impatiently to be set free, and Tsukishima, whose calm demeanor betrayed nothing. Hinata was practically vibrating in place. On the sideline, Suga was clutching a notepad with such intensity that it bent in his hands, and Daichi saw him throw a sheepish grin at the nervous-looking Yamaguchi. Their coaches and managers were wearing matching expressions of anxiety.

Then there was Kageyama.

Daichi felt his eyes narrow as he picked up the electric tension between their setter and Aoba Jousai’s. Kageyama was glaring at Oikawa with an expression of high determination, brows draw even lower over his sharp blue eyes, and in return Oikawa was smiling smugly at him. It was a smile that said, _Scowl all you want- I’m still better than you._

It made Daichi want to punch him in the face a little. He could see now why Kageyama had been so caught up about the match. All he could hope now was that Kageyama had mellowed enough so that it wouldn’t be an issue.

And then, four points down, when he sensed the team beginning to stress, the captain saw the look shared between Kageyama and Hinata.  
They’d avoided it so far, preferring to go with straight attacking, but now it was time to unleash the super quick and seriously rattle the Aoba Jousai team.

Then it happened.

Tanaka was leaping for the ball, Kageyama poised to toss to him, when on some unseen signal Hinata suddenly dashed off to the right and the next thing everyone knew, there was a _snap – thwack_ as the ball changed trajectory and sailed right past the noses of Iwaizumi and Turnip-head.

It was a blink-and-you-miss-it attack.

The stadium erupted as Hinata landed to her feet, throwing a triumphant smile at their setter, and Oikawa looked like he’d been hit in the face with a wet mackerel.

 _Ladies and Gentlemen_ , Daichi thought smugly as Aoba Jousai called for a time out, _the quick-strike has landed_.

x

 

Kageyama was playing his heart out. He’d wanted to win before, but never like this. This time, it was personal.

Sure, he had his own grudges to face. He was pretty sure his old team were still bitter about the way he’d treated them- and fair enough, too. Somewhere along the way he’d been shown a mirror and realised that they were right. He _had_ been a king. Yet here he was, the tyrannical king Kageyama, doling out tosses like it was Christmas and feeling so proud of Hinata it was like he would burst from it.

She was leaping around, doing her decoy thing, and the look on Oikawa’s face was priceless. He could practically see him thinking “ _oh shit, she can actually play._ ”

Kageyama didn’t feel too angry about it. After all, he’d been there. He’d thought the same- _said_ the same – in the beginning. At least Oikawa hadn’t knocked anyone unconscious.  
Oh, but he still felt angry enough that the satisfaction when Hinata spiked it right past his nose for the third time was tenfold. Angry enough that the sight of the Aoba Jousai blockers chasing her tail made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

He looked around at the team, high-fiving each other and constantly yelling encouragement, and felt a weird sort of calm take over. It wasn’t just Hinata- everyone was on form today. Even Suga, who’d taken over briefly after Kageyama had lost his cool and was sidelined in the second set, had shown exactly why nobody should underestimate the silver-haired setter. Now, into the third set, it was all coming down to this. They’d have to give it all.

With every toss, with every quick and set-up and kill and receive and serve…  
The pieces were falling together, and Karasuno was taking off.

He just hoped it would be enough to win. For the team, for himself… and for the girl dashing around the court next to him, jumping around like a little orange sparrow and never losing the determined look on her face.

 

x

 

But it wasn’t.

 

x

 

Hinata felt her heart break into a thousand little pieces as the whistle blew and the scoreboards were flipped to show Aoba Jousai’s victory.

She’d really thought, for a moment there, that they could do it. For a moment there, in the third set of the match, she’d felt it all come together and she _knew_ it was possible. She _knew_ they could win. She _knew_ Kageyama and she could beat them.  
But she was wrong.  
After all the sweat and the tears, after all they went through in a single match, it still wasn’t enough to overcome the Great King.

Clenching her fist, she tried to control herself as her shoulders started to shake.

 _Don’t lose it, Hinata,_ she said to herself. _Not here, not now. Don’t-_

She was interrupted by a tapping at her shoulder.

Turning around, she was met with the steady gaze of Oikawa Tooru, captain of the team that had just turned Karasuno’s dreams to dust.  
So it was unsurprising that she didn’t immediately accept the hand offered her way.

 _“What do you want_?” she spat instead, and the captain idly brushed his other fingers through his hair.

“Just wanted to congratulate you,” he said, and Hinata felt like she’d been slapped.  
“If this is some kind of joke I’m gonna-“  
“It’s not.”

“ _Hah????_ ”

His expression lost some of its smugness, and he looked genuinely abashed as she looked at him in surprise.

“I don’t like being wrong. It almost never happens, so I’m not used to it. But… I was wrong about you. I thought you would be terrible, because you’re a girl.”  
“Yeah, you weren’t the only one,” she muttered, remembering how Kageyama had said almost the exact same thing that day, way back when she’d first tried to join the club. He’d been such a dick, back then, and she’d hated him for it, but now…  
Now what?  
Now she was apparently being congratulated by the top setter in the prefecture for her playing style, and she tried to concentrate as she realised Oikawa’s hand was still in midair.  
A little reluctantly, she shook it.  
“Thanks.”  
“No problem… chibi-chan.”

Aaaand he was back to being an asshole, waving leisurely at her furious face and walking off to his waiting team.

She swore angrily and went to kick the nearest solid object, tears rising in her eyes again, before another hand tapped her shoulder.

“If you call me chibi-chan ONE MORE TI-“  
She cut off her furious tirade as Kageyama grabbed her hand.  
“Come on, we’re going for a walk.”

 

Outside, away from the throng of spectators and sweaty players, he dropped her hand and turned so they were face to face.

“Hinata.”

She felt like she was going to cry again.

”What?” she whispered, attempting to dip her chin, but suddenly his slim fingers were holding her face upright, keeping her gaze levelled with his own.

“It’s okay.”

At the single two words she felt the dam break, and she tried to push away from him, lashing out with both hands and forcibly turning her head away.

“No it’s not!” she choked out, tears running down her face as she furiously wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “We lost! The championship is over, Kageyama! We lost!”

“Yeah, we did.”

“So how is it okay?!”

“Because,” he said, and the disappointment in his face was matched by some weird sort of joy. “look how far we’ve come. Look what we’ve done together, as a team. You think we could’ve stood a chance against Aoba Jousai if we’d played them in the beginning? You think anyone expected you to perform like you did in that match? Hinata, open your eyes. You shone so bright today, and we didn’t win, but look what we achieved. _Look how everyone sees you now_.”

“I-“

“You stunned Oikawa into silence with that jump of yours. You proved to him, like you proved to everyone, that you belong on that court. And not just you, either, but all of us proved that we aren’t flightless crows anymore. We put up one hell of a fight today, and maybe it’s not the win we were after, but I’d sure call it a victory.

And besides,” he said, coming a little closer now. “There’s always the spring championship.”

She still felt the crushing disappointment deep in her chest, at Kageyama’s words she felt it mix with a strange sort of pride.

“I stood on that court with you guys,” she whispered, and he nodded.

“Yeah, you did.”

And then she was on her tippy toes, and it was just like outside the bathroom except this time she wasn’t aiming for his cheekbone, and as their lips met and arms interlaced she felt a shiver run through her entire body, because the world disappeared until all she felt was him around her and a happiness that threatened to whisk her away-

as they broke apart, he smiled at her, and it took her breath away.

“I never said it, but Hinata, I-“  
“Yeah, me too.”

There was a pause.

“DUMBASS, YOU DIDN’T EVEN LET ME FINISH!” he roared, and she stepped back a little, hackles instantly rising.  
“BUT I KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO SAY AND I REALLY WANTED TO SAY I DID TOO BEFORE-“  
“GOD _DAMNIT_ HINATA!”

He ran a hand through his hair, huffing at her with angry pink spots on his cheekbones, and it was like old times, except he finished it up with something different.  
“You’re so annoying, how I fell in love with you is a mystery, I swear.”

He’d said it now, and she felt a beaming smile overcome her entire face as he turned beet red.  
“If you don’t say it too I swear I’ll-“  
‘I do! I love you too!”  
“Well that’s good then!”

He was scowling at her, and she was still smiling like there was no tomorrow, when suddenly there was a loud beeping noise and they realised the Karasuno team were sitting in the van, waiting for them, and had quite probably seen the whole thing.

“Erm,” she said awkwardly, and he grabbed her hand.  
“Dumbass. I told you, I don’t care if people think I’m in love with you. It’s the truth, after all.”

And sure, there was a ribbing on the bus afterwards, with Tanaka describing their kiss in graphic detail and Suga having to sit on him to shut him up, and Kageyama almost leaping on Tsukishima when he theorised about exactly how stupid their hypothetical children would be (“cause with the brains you two have, the kid is gonna be lucky to walk and talk at the same time-“ “SHUT UP, JERK!”). Eventually the whole team jumped in, talking over one another and laughing as the volume rose higher and higher until Ukai and Daichi yelled at them simultaneously to _pipe the frick down, you assholes_!

Yet Hinata didn’t stop smiling the entire time, not even as tiredness overcame her and she rested her head against Kageyama’s shoulder to fall asleep.

She could feel the careful hitch of his breathing, rhythmic and slow, as he drew her against his chest. She almost didn’t want to fall asleep, afraid to lose the feeling of complete bliss that suffused her body. Afraid that she would wake from nightmares to find the seat empty, with not even his warmth left behind.  
But she was so tired…  
Eventually, reluctantly, she closed her eyes.

 

She needn’t have worried.

When she awoke, gum-eyed and drooling (to his eternal credit, Kageyama didn’t tease her at all), he was still there and still awake.  
“Hey,” he said, softly.  
“Hey.”

She couldn’t stop the grin spreading over her face, and he looked puzzled until she explained.

“I dreamed about us.”

Instantly she realised how clingy it sounded, and wanted to go back in time and slap herself in the face for even _thinking_ it would be okay to mention that to her boyfriend of twenty minutes, but Kageyama was looking at her with a curiously pleased expression.

“Yeah?”  
“Yeah. I dreamed we were heading to the Olympics together, and everyone was there, cheering us on, and as we stepped onto the court-“  
“What?”  
“I woke up,” she finished, still smiling like crazy. “But that’s okay, because I woke up to you.”

He spluttered, bright red, and Hinata could hear someone chuckling behind them as they (totally obviously) feigned sleep, but she was still filled with the kind of sleepy recklessness that inclined her to say anything.  
“Jeez, you’re so embarrassing!” he managed eventually, but he had a goofy-looking half smile on his face as he turned to look out the window.  
“I hope it happens,” she murmured, leaning her head back against his shoulder, and he scoffed.  
“I think you have to be able to receive to make it into the Olympic team, Hinata.”  
“Wha- HEY, you’re so mean! I won’t kiss a mean mouth like that!”  
“I was _joking_! Of course you’ll make it!”  
“Really?!”  
“Yes, dumbass! I keep telling you you’re talented! Besides, if all else fails you can always annoy your way onto the team!”  
“See, just when I think you’re going to be nice, you always turn out to be such a-“  
“BOTH OF YOU, SHUT IT!”

As they finally fell silent, skin bathed in the dusky early-evening light streaking through the bus windows, Hinata leaned back against his shoulder and closed her eyes again.  
She wanted to dream of volleyball again, of the upcoming Spring Inter-High, of one day standing on that Olympic court and hearing the roar of the crowd. She wanted to prove to the world what she could do, who she could be and how she could play. She wanted to keep dreaming until her dreams became real.

She knew, one day, they would.

  
After all, she’d made it this far, hadn’t she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys have enjoyed reading this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it! Thank you for sticking with it to the end, and I hope femHinata inspires you as much as she inspires me. 
> 
> Leave your review in the comments, and let's all get back to excitedly anticipating the upcoming second season and movie(s?)...  
> I AM SO EXCITED FOR ANIMATED YACHI IT'S ALMOST EMBARRASSING


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